But the
barbarity
barbarity
of the Greeks provoked fresh hostilities which re-
sulted in their expulsion from the country.
sulted in their expulsion from the country.
Cambridge Medieval History - v4 - Eastern Roman Empire
But the universal grief at Gagik's death
was unconscious mourning for the end of prosperity. It presaged the slow
declension of Armenia from national pride to servitude, and the gradual
passing of the royal house from kingly power to exile and extinction.
Two generations of misfortune (1020-1079) opened with civil war.
Gagik had left two sons. His successor John-Smbat (1020-1040), timid
and effeminate, was attacked and defeated by his younger and more
militant brother Ashot, who was helped by Senekherim Arcruni, King of
Vaspurakan (Van). Peace was concluded through the mediation of the
Katholikos Petros Getadartz and Giorgi, King of the Georgians, but only
by a division of territory. John-Smbat kept Ani and its dependencies,
while Ashot took the part of the kingdom next to Persia and Georgia
(Iberia). On the death of either brother the country was to be re-united
under the survivor.
But Ashot was discontented. He roused the King of Georgia to
attack and imprison John-Smbat, who escaped only by yielding three
fortresses to Giorgi. Still unsatisfied, Ashot feigned mortal illness and
begged his brother to pay him a last visit. Once by Ashot's bedside,
John-Smbat saw the trap and begged for his life. Ashot, deceitful to
the end, freed him merely to hand him over to Prince Apirat, who
1 A copy of the church (still standing) of Aghthamar.
CH. VI.
11-2
## p. 164 (#206) ############################################
164
Armenia threatened by Greeks and Turks
promised to kill him at a secret spot. But, visited by sudden remorse,
Apirat restored the king to Ani and his throne, and fled himself to
Abū’l-Aswār, governor of Dwin, to escape the wrath of Ashot.
While Ashot schemed against his brother, Armenia was threatened
on both sides by different enemies, one old, the other new. The new
assailants were the Seljūq Turks, led against Vaspurakan at the opening
of John-Smbat's reign by Țughril Beg, whose precursor Hasan had
already wasted Mesopotamia. When they had overcome the resistance
of Vaspurakan, they advanced into John-Smbat's territory. At the
beginning of his reign John-Smbat had had an army of 60,000, but the
Armenian generalissimo, Vasak Pahlavuni, had to meet the Turks with
a bare five hundred men. Climbing Mount Serkevil to rest, he died
there, whether by his own hand, or by treason, or by a rock falling from
the mountain while he prayed, is unknown. Meanwhile, Țughril Beg
left Armenia for the time and conquered the whole of Persia.
On the west, Armenia was threatened once again by the Byzantine
Empire. The Turkish advance, instead of inducing the Greeks to help
Armenia, revived in them their old ambition of conquest, with fatal
results not only to the Armenians but to themselves. During the reign
of John-Smbat this ambition was twice fed by Armenian policy.
Conquered and then left by Țughril Beg, Senekherim of Vaspurakan
gave up his kingdom to Basil II (1021) in exchange for the town of
Sebastea (Sīwās) rather than wait to offer a second vain resistance to the
Turks on their inevitable return? . Two years later Basil entered Georgia
to repress a revolt in which John-Smbat had been secretly implicated.
In fear of the Emperor's wrath John-Smbat violated the treaty he had
made with his brother, and through the agency of the Katholikos Petros
Getadartz he gave in writing a promise that after his own death Basil
should inherit Ani. Basil was well pleased. But some years later his
successor Constantine VIII summoned to his death-bed an Armenian
priest named Kirakos, and handed him the inequitable document, saying:
“ Bear this letter to thy king and tell him from me that like other
mortals I find myself on the threshold of Eternity, and I would not
extort the possession of another. Let him take back his kingdom and
give it to his sons. " The mischief might have ended here but for the
treachery of the priest, who kept the letter in his own possession and
finally sold it for a large sum to Michael IV (1034). Much as his dis-
honesty cost the Emperor, it was to cost Armenia more.
As soon as John-Smbat was dead, Michael sent an embassy to claim
Ani and its dependencies. His chance of success was good, because Ani
was divided by two factions. One, led by the generalissimo Vahram
Pahlavuni, wished to crown Gagik, the fourteen-year-old nephew and
heir of John-Smbat; the other intended to give the crown to Vest Sarkis
1 See Macler, F. , Rapport sur une mission scientifique en Arménie russe et en
Arménie turque. . . , Paris 1911, p. 46.
ܕ•
## p. 165 (#207) ############################################
Constantine Monomachus betrays Gagik II
165
Siwni, the regent, or failing him to the Emperor Michael. For the
moment, party differences were sunk in unanimous denial of Byzantine
claims, but Vest Sarkis destroyed this short-lived amity by seizing the
State treasure and several strongholds. Vahram's party won a fairer re-
nown by defeating the Greeks, who were sent by the Emperor to take by
force what his embassy had failed to win by persuasion. One after
another three Greek armies invaded Armenia; each spread desolation far
and wide without conquering Ani. Michael then sent a fourth army
to besiege Ani while the King of the Albanians (Aluans) invaded the
north-east province of Armenia on behalf of the Greeks. Vahram broke
up the invading army by a bold attack. The Greeks, terrified by the fury
of the Armenians, fled in disorder, leaving twenty thousand dead and
wounded beneath the walls of the town. This victory enabled Vahram to
crown Gagik II (1042-1046). With a mere handful of men the boy-
king recovered the State treasure and the citadel of Ani from Vest
Sarkis, whom he cast into prison. Unhindered for the moment by Greek
interference or Armenian treachery, Gagik drove out the Turks and
began to restore order in the country. But unfortunately for himself and
for his people, he was generous enough to forgive Vest Sarkis and to
raise him to honour. Posing as the king's friend, this traitor worked to
alienate the Armenian princes from Gagik and to encourage the hostile
intention of Constantine Monomachus, successor to Michael V.
Constantine copied the Armenian policy of Michael. Failing to secure
Ani by negotiation, he sent an army to seize it. Gagik defeated the
Greeks and forced them to retire. Like Michael, Constantine then sent
a larger army, and at the same time urged Abū’l-Aswār, governor of Dwin,
to harass the Armenians on the east. But Gagik disarmed Abū’l-Aswār
by gifts, and after a short battle put to flight the confident Greeks.
Still Constantine would not give up hope. Where peace and war had
failed, trickery might succeed. Inspired by Vest Sarkis, he asked Gagik
to come to Constantinople to sign a treaty of perpetual peace, swearing
on the cross and the gospels in the presence of Gagik's delegate that he
would be true to his word. Unwilling to go himself, and discouraged by
the Vahramians, the king ultimately yielded to the evil counsel of Vest
Sarkis and passed out of Armenia to his ruin. Before he had spent many
days in Constantinople, the Emperor demanded Ani of him, and, when
he refused it, imprisoned him on an island in the Bosphorus.
When the Armenians heard of this disaster, there was much division
among them. Some wanted to deliver Ani to David Anholin of Albania,
others to Bagarat, King of Georgia and Abasgia, but the Katholikos
Petros, to whom Gagik had entrusted the keys, informed the Emperor
that Ani should be his for a consideration. Once assured of a good price
for his shameful merchandise, Petros sent the forty keys of the bartered
city to Constantine.
Gagik rebelled against the accomplished fact, but finally abdicated
CA. VI.
## p. 166 (#208) ############################################
166
Greater Armenia conquered by the Seljūqs
his throne, receiving in exchange the town of Bizou in Cappadocia. Here
he married the daughter of David, King of Sebastea, and led the wandering
life of an exile. After many years, he learnt one day that the Metro-
politan, Mark of Caesarea, had named his dog Armên in mockery of the
Armenians. Gagik could not stomach the insult, steep it as he must in
the bitterness of exile, in hatred of a rival Church, in contempt for
a people he had never encountered but as conqueror until they overcame
him by guile. To avenge the honour of his country's name, he caused
the dog and the ecclesiastic to be tied up together in a sack, and had
the animal beaten until it bit its master to death. For this crime against
their metropolitan, three Greek brothers seized Gagik by treachery and
hanged him in the castle of Cyzistra (1079). He left two sons and
a grandson, but they did not long survive him. When the last of them
had died in prison, the Bagratuni line was extinct.
During the exile of their king, the Armenians fell a prey to Greek
and Turk. At first, not knowing of his abdication, they resisted the
Greeks and dispersed the army sent under the command of the eunuch
Paracamus to take possession of Ani. But on hearing that Gagik was
never again to enter the country, the Armenians lost all heart, and
allowed Paracamus to possess the city. Once masters of Armenia, the
Greeks committed atrocious cruelties. They exiled or poisoned the
princes, replaced Armenian troops by Greek garrisons, and worked for
the utter destruction of the country.
But they had reckoned without the Turk. Learning of Armenia's
weakness, Țughril Beg returned, and spread ruin and desolation far and
wide for several years. He sacked the fortified town of Smbataberd and
tortured the inhabitants. The rich commercial town of Ardzen shared
the same fate (1049). The Greeks at last determined to make an end of
his savagery. Together with Liparid, King of Georgia, their general
Comnenus offered battle to the Turks near Bayber. But owing to dis-
agreement among the Christians, the Turks were victorious and carried
the King of Georgia into captivity. With no one now to oppose him,
Țughril overran most of Armenia except Ani. Vanand resisted in vain,
but their failure in the siege of Manzikert forced the Turks to retire.
ľughril fell back, only to wreak his vengeance upon Ardskê. His death,
like that of the Arab Afshin long before, brought no relief to Armenia,
for like Afshin, he left a brother, Alp Arslān, to complete his work of
destruction. Alp Arslān besieged Ani unsuccessfully for a time, but
finally overcame its resistance and sacked the city with unimaginable
fury. The river Akhurian ran red with blood; palaces and temples were
set on fire and covered thousands of corpses with their ruins (1064). The
Turks then invited Vanand to submit. Gagik, the king, feigned friend-
ship and made an alliance with Alp Arslān. But like Senekherim of Van
before him, he gave his kingdom to the Eastern Empire in exchange for
a stronghold farther west. In 1065 he transported his family to the
## p. 167 (#209) ############################################
Character of Armeno-Cilician kingdom
167
castle of Dzmndav in Little Armenia. The Greeks, however, could not
save Vanand from the Turks, who pushed their conquests as far as Little
Armenia. Kars, Karin, Bayber, Sebastea, and Caesarea had submitted to
Alp Arslān, when the Emperor Romanus Diogenes opposed him at
Manzikert in 1071. The Greeks were defeated, and the Turks led the
Emperor into captivity.
By the end of the eleventh century not a vestige remained of
Byzantine dominion over Armenia. The Greeks saw too late the fatal
consequences of their selfish hostility towards a country which on south
and east might have served them as a rampart against their most
dangerous foe.
The national history of Greater Armenia ended with the Turkish
conquest and with the extinction of the Bagratuni line. Little by little,
numbers of Armenians withdrew into the Taurus mountains and the
plateau below, but though their country rose again from ruin, it was
only as a small principality in Cilicia. The fruits of Armenian civilisation-
the architectural splendour of Ani, the military strength of Van, the
intellectual life of Kars, the commercial pride of Bitlis and Ardzen-were
no more.
Greater Armenia had been eastern rather than western, coming into
contact with race after race from the east; with Byzantium alone, half
eastern itself, on the west. But the civilisation of Armeno-Cilicia was
western rather than eastern: its political interests were divided between
Europe and Asia, and its history was overshadowed by that of the
Crusades. To the Crusades the change was pre-eminently due. Crusading
leaders stood in every kind of relationship to the new Armenian kingdom.
They befriended and fought it by turns. They used its roads, borrowed
its troops, received its embassies, fought its enemies, and established
feudal governments near it. For a time their influence made it a Euro-
pean State, built on feudal lines, seeking agreement with the Church of
Rome, and sending envoys to the principal courts of Christendom.
But the Armenian Church, which had been the inspiration and main-
stay of the old civilisation, and the family ambitions, which had helped
to destroy it, lived on to prove the continuity of the little State of
Armeno-Cilicia with the old Bagratid kingdom. Nationalist feeling,
stirred to life by fear of religious compromise and by the growth of Latin
influence at court, was to provoke a crisis more than once in centuries
to come.
Among the Armenian migrants to the Taurus mountains, during the
invasions that followed the abdication of Gagik II, was Prince Ruben
(Rupen). He had seen the assassination of Gagik to whom he was related,
and he determined to avenge his kinsman's death on the Greeks.
Collecting a band of companions, whose numbers increased from day to
CH. VI.
## p. 168 (#210) ############################################
168
The foundation of Armeno-Cilicia
day, he took up his stand in the village of Goromozol near the fortress
of Bardsrberd, drove the Greeks out of the Taurus region, and established
his dominion there. The other Armenian princes recognised his supremacy
and helped him to strengthen his power, though many years were to pass
before the Greeks were driven out of all the Cilician towns and strongholds
which they occupied.
Cilicia was divided into two well-marked districts: the plain, rich and
fertile but difficult to defend, and the mountains, covered with forests
and full of defiles. The wealth of the country was in its towns: Adana,
Mamistra, and Anazarbus, for long the chief centres of hostility between
Greeks and Armenians; Ayas with its maritime trade; Tarsus and Sis,
each in turn the capital of the new Armenian State; Germanicea or Marʻash,
and Ulnia or Zeithun. The mountainous region, difficult of approach,
and sprinkled with Syrian, Greek, and Armenian monasteries, easily con-
verted into strongholds, was the surest defence of the province, though
in addition the countryside was protected by strong fortresses such as
Vahka, Bardsrberd, Kapan, and Lambron.
When Ruben died, after fifteen years of wise rule (1080-1095), he was
able to hand on the lordship of Cilicia to his son Constantine (1095-1100),
who first brought Armeno-Cilicia into close contact with Europe. Con-
stantine continued his father's work by capturing Vahka and other for-
tresses from the Greeks and thus increasing his patrimony. But he broke
new ground by making an alliance with the Crusaders, who in return for
his services in pointing out roads and in furnishing supplies, especially
during the siege of Antioch, gave him the title of Marquess.
If the principality thus founded in hostile territory owed its existence
to the energy of an Armenian prince, it owed its survival largely to ex-
ternal causes. In the first place, the Turks were divided. After 1092,
when the Seljūq monarchy split into rival powers, Persia alone was
governed by the direct Seljūq line; other sultans of Seljūq blood ruled
parts of Syria and Asia Minor. Although the Sultans of Iconium or
Rūm were to be a perpetual danger to Cilicia from the beginning of
the twelfth century onwards, the division of the Turks at the close of the
eleventh century broke for a time the force of their original advance, and
gave the first Rubenians a chance to recreate the Armenian State. In
the second place, the Crusades began. The Latin States founded in the East
during the First Crusade checked the Turks, and also prevented the Greeks,
occupied as they were with internal and external difficulties, from making
a permanent reconquest of Cilicia. The Latins did not aim at protecting
the Armenians, with whom indeed they often quarrelled. But as a close
neighbour to a number of small states, nominally friendly but really
inimical to Byzantium, Armenia was no longer isolated. Instead of being
a lonely upstart principality, it became one of many recognised kingdoms,
all hostile to the Greek recovery of the Levant, allentitled to the moral sanc-
tion and expecting the armed support of the mightiest kings of Europe.
## p. 169 (#211) ############################################
Armeno-Cilicia attacked by Greeks and Turks
169
For about twenty-five years after Constantine's death, his two sons,
Thoros I (1100–1123) and Leo I (1123-1135), ruled the Armenians with
great success. As an able administrator Thoros organised the country,
and would have given his time to building churches and palaces if his
enemies had left him in peace. But he had to fight both Greeks and
Turks. He took Anazarbus from the Greeks and repulsed an invasion of
Seljūqs and Turkomans. In his reign the death of Gagik II was at last
avenged: Armenian troops seized the castle of Cyzistra and put to death
the three Greek brothers who had hanged the exiled king. Leo I, who
succeeded Thoros, had not the administrative gifts of his predecessors,
but like them he was a brave soldier. He captured Mamistra and Tarsus,
the chief towns still in Greek hands, and was for a time unquestioned
master of all Cilicia.
But the Greeks were not permanently ousted from Cilicia until 1168.
Leo's dominion was short-lived, owing to the failure of his diplomacy.
He wore his political designs round the Christian principality of Antioch.
At first he joined with Roger of Antioch against the Turks; then, quar-
relling with Roger, he joined the Turks against Antioch (1130). In revenge,
Roger's successor Bohemond II allied with Baldwin, Count of Maríash,
seized Leo by a trick (1131), and as the price of freedom extorted from
him the towns of Mamistra and Adana, a sum of 60,000 piastres, and
one of his sons as hostage. Leo paid the price demanded, but afterwards
re-took by force what he had been compelled to yield to treachery.
Meanwhile Antioch attracted the envious eye of the Emperor John
Comnenus. First, he tried to gain it for the Empire by a marriage project.
Failing in this, he fought for it. This time Leo joined with Antioch
against the Greeks, but again he suffered for his choice. While he was
encamped before Seleucia at the head of Latin and Armenian troops, the
Emperor invaded Cilicia, took Tarsus, Mamistra, and Adana, and had
already begun to attack Anazarbus when Leo hurried back to relieve the
city. The Emperor despaired of capturing it until his son Isaac advised
him to cover his engines of war with clay to prevent them from being
broken. This device succeeded. Leo retired to the castle of Vahka, and
in spite of help from Antioch was forced to surrender (1135). Antioch
recognised the Emperor's supremacy, and Leo was put into chains and
sent to a Byzantine prison, where he died six years later (1141). Two of
his sons were imprisoned with him. The elder was tortured and put to
death, but Thoros, the younger, survived to deliver his country.
Before deliverance came, the Armenians were tormented for nine long
years by their old enemies, the Greeks and the Turks. Leo's misfortune
gave Cilicia to the Greeks, who pillaged and destroyed strongholds and
towns, convents and churches. The Turks and even the Latins joined in
demolishing the laborious work of the first Rubenians. But when the
Turkish Emir Ahmad Malik had seized Vahka and Kapan, the Emperor
returned to Cilicia, bringing with him Thoros, son of Leo I. In this
CH, VI.
## p. 170 (#212) ############################################
170
Thoros II successful against the Greeks
campaign, however, the Emperor was killed while hunting, and the Greek
army retreated, while Thoros managed to escape and disclosed his identity
to an Armenian priest.
Thoros II (1145–1168) had to reconquer his kingdom from the Greeks
before he could rule it. At the head of ten thousand Armenians and with
the help of his brothers, Stephanê (Sdephanê) and Mleh, who had been at
the court of Nūr-ad-Din, Sultan of Aleppo, he recaptured the fortresses
of Vahka, Simanakla, and Arindz. One by one all the great cities of the
plain opened their gates. Manuel Comnenus hastened to bring his Hun-
garian war to a close and to send his cousin the Caesar Andronicus to
oppose Thoros, who retired to Mamistra on the approach of the Greek
army. The town was without ammunition, and Thoros undertook to re-
cognise the supremacy of the Greeks if they would respect his paternal
rights. Andronicus refused, and threatened to bind Thoros with his
father's fetters. But on a dark, rainy night Thoros breached the walls
of the town and surprised the enemy at their revels. Andronicus escaped
with a handful of men, but Thoros pursued him as far as Antioch, and
then returned to Mamistra. He held to ransom the Greek nobles he had
captured, and divided the money among his soldiers, telling the wonder-
ing Greeks that he did so in order that his men might one day recapture
them. Among the prisoners was Oshin, Lord of Lambron, father of the
famous Nerses Lambronatsi. Oshin paid twenty thousand pieces of gold
as half his ransom, and for the second half left his son Hethum (Hayton)
as hostage. Thoros had later so great an affection for Hethum that he
gave him his daughter in marriage, and regarding the payment of Oshin's
debt as the girl's dowry he sent them both to Lambron, hoping thus to
win the friendship of Oshin and his family. This hope was not fulfilled,
for Lambron, with its leanings towards Byzantium, was destined to give
much trouble to future rulers of Armenia.
Manuel's next step was to induce other rulers to attack Thoros. First
he bribed Masóūd I, Sultan of Iconium, to oppose him. The Sultan twice
invaded Cilicia, only to be repulsed, once by the sight of Thoros' prepara-
tions, once by plague (1154). The Emperor then turned to the Latins,
and excited Reginald of Chatillon, regent of Antioch, to fight against
Armenia. Thoros and Reginald fought a bloody but doubtful battle at
Alexandretta, but Reginald, not receiving the Emperor's promised help,
made peace with Thoros and marched against the Greeks. He made a
naval attack on Cyprus and inflicted great injury on its defenceless
people. This diversion enabled Thoros to consolidate his power and even
to extend it in the mountainous districts of Phrygia and Isauria.
Manuel was greatly dissatisfied with the unexpected result. He sent
against Thoros another army, which failed like the first, and then came
to Cilicia in person. Warned in time by a Latin monk, Thoros put his
family and his treasure in the stronghold of Tajki-Gar (Rock of Tajik),
and hid himself in the mountains while the Emperor deprived him of his
## p. 171 (#213) ############################################
The Greeks driven from Cilicia
171
hardly-won cities. When peace was finally made through the mediation
of Baldwin III, King of Jerusalem, Thoros was restored to power under
the title of Pansebastos and Manuel kept the two towns of Anazarbus and
Mamistra (1159).
But the barbarity of the Greeks provoked fresh hostilities which re-
sulted in their expulsion from the country. While Thoros helped the
crusaders against the Sultan of Aleppo, his brother Stephanê (Sdephanê)
re-took the towns which the Sultan of Iconium had captured from the
Christians. Jealous of Stephanê's success, the Emperor's lieutenant, An-
dronicus Euphorbenus? , invited him to a feast and cast him into a cauldron
of boiling water (1163). Once more a powerful Greek army was sent to
Cilicia, but Thoros determined to avenge his brother's death, and, by de-
feating the invaders in a great battle near Tarsus, brought to a successful
close his life-long struggle against Byzantium. Greek domination in
Cilicia was at an end.
Thoros died regretted by all, leaving a child, Ruben II, to succeed him,
and a brother to undo his work. This brother, Mleh, had been a Templar
and a Catholic, and then became a leader of Turkoman nomads. He
spread destruction wherever he went. The young king took refuge with
the Katholikos at Romkla, where he soon died. Mleh openly joined the
Sultan Nūr-ad-Dīn, invaded Cilicia, and did great harm to the Armenians.
But he made himself so unpopular by his cruelty that his own soldiers
killed him (1175).
After his death the Armenians filled his place by his nephew
Ruben III (1175-1185), the eldest son of the Stephanê who had been cast
into boiling water by the Greeks. Of peaceful disposition, Ruben none
the less freed his country from external attack; but from his Armenian
enemies he was only saved by his brother Leo.
Although the Greeks had been driven out of Cilicia, some of the
Armenian principalities, Lambron among them, still looked upon the
Emperor as their suzerain. Hethum of Lambron was related to the Ru-
benians by marriage, but he preferred Byzantine to Armenian supremacy,
and asked Bohemond III of Antioch to help him against Ruben III. Bohe-
mond seized Ruben by treachery, imprisoned him at Antioch, and marched
against the Armenians, hoping to conquer Cilicia, not for Hethum or
the Emperor, but for himself. Leo, however, repulsed him, and forced
him and Hethum to make peace with Ruben. On his release, Ruben de-
voted himself to the welfare of his people, who loved him for his liberality
and wise administration. He built towns and convents, and finally retired
into a monastery.
Ruben's successor was his brother Leo II (1185–1219), surnamed the
Great or the Magnificent, already known as his country's defender, and
destined to raise the lordship or barony of Armeno-Cilicia to the status
1 In another view this atrocity is attributed to Andronicus Comnenus. See
infra, Chapter XII, p. 375.
CH. VI.
## p. 172 (#214) ############################################
172
European connexions of Leo the Great
of a kingdom. His long reign of thirty-four years fully justified his change
of style, for he gave his country a stability and prosperity that were un-
paralleled in its annals.
His first work was to free the Armenians from Muslim pressure. He
conquered Rustam, Sultan of Iconiun, who suddenly invaded Cilicia, and
two years
after his accession he drove back the united forces of the Sultans
of Aleppo and Damascus (1187). When he was once more at peace
he
built fortresses on the frontiers and filled them with well-trained garrisons.
With Cilicia he incorporated Isauria, which had been seized by the Seljūqs
of Rūm.
In diplomacy, his sovereign purpose was to obtain the help of Western
Europe against the Greeks and Muslims. He sought the friendship of the
European princes by means of marriage-alliances. His niece Aliza was
married to Raymond, son of Bohemond of Antioch; and he himself
married Isabella of Austria. Later, he repudiated Isabella and married
Sibylla, daughter of Amaury of Lusignan, King of Cyprus. Long before
his second marriage he had made a friend of Frederick Barbarossa, who
at the outset of his ill-starred Crusade asked for Leo's help in return for
the promise of a crown. Leo quickly sent abundant provisions and am-
munition to the Crusaders, and when the imperial army entered Isauria he
himself went with the Katholikos to greet the Emperor. They never met,
for Barbarossa had been drowned on the way, bathing in the Cali-
cadnus.
After some years, Frederick's son Henry VI and Pope Celestine III
sent the promised crown to Leo, and, at the feast of the Epiphany in 1198,
he was consecrated in the cathedral of Sis? by the Katholikos Grigor VII
Apirat in the presence of the Archbishop of Mayence, Conrad of Wittels-
bach, Papal legate and representative of the Emperor? The Eastern Em-
peror Alexius Angelus also sent Leo a crown in confirmation of Armenian
authority over Cilicia, so long disputed by the Greeks.
Leo was anxious to include the Pope among his European friends.
Many letters passed between the Popes on the one side and the Katholikos
and King of Armenia on the other with a view to uniting the Roman and
Armenian Churches. But the Armenian authorities, willing themselves
to make concessions to Rome, were opposed by the Armenian people,
who strenuously defended their Church against the authority of the
Papacy. In the end, the sole result of attempted reconciliation was an
embitterment of religious feeling.
King by the consent of Europe, Leo made his country a European
State. He chose a new seat for his government, removing it from Tarsus
to Sis, where he entertained German, English, French, and Italian captains,
who came to serve under the Armenian banner. In defining the relations
1 Some historians say Tarsus.
2 A list of the prelates, lords, and ambassadors who attended the ceremony will
be found in the Chronicle of Smbat.
## p. 173 (#215) ############################################
Leo's achievements in peace and war
173
of the princes to the royal house, in establishing military and household
posts, in creating tribunals, and in fixing the quota of taxes and tribute,
he copied to a great extent the organisation of the Latin princes of Syria.
One of the fruits of his alliance with Bohemond of Antioch was the
adoption of the Assises of Antioch as the law of Armeno-Cilicia.
In addition, Leo encouraged industry, navigation, and commerce. He
cultivated commercial relations with the West, and by granting privileges
to Genoese and Venetian merchants he spread Cilician trade throughout
Europe. Mindful, too, of the good works of his forefathers, he founded
orphanages and hospitals and schools, and increased the number of con-
vents, where skilled calligraphists and miniaturists added lustre to the
prosperity of his reign.
Leo's reputation, founded on peaceful achievement, is all the greater
because he attained it in spite of intermittent wars. Of his own will he
entered on a long succession-struggle in Antioch to defend the rights of
his young kinsman, Ruben-Raymond, against the usurpation of an uncle,
Bohemond IV the One-Eyed, Count of Tripolis, who had seized the govern-
ment of Antioch with the help of Templars and Hospitallers. Leo recap-
tured Antioch and restored Ruben-Raymond to power. Bohemond
returned, drove out his nephew a second time, and bribed the Sultan of
Iconium, Rukn-ad-Dīn, to invade Cilicia. Though deserted at the last
minute by the Templars, for whose services he had paid twenty thousand
Byzantine pounds, Leo forced the Seljūqs to retire with serious losses, and
turned again to Antioch. While he was preparing to besiege the town,
he referred the succession question to Innocent III, who entrusted its
solution to the King of Jerusalem and the Patriarchs of Jerusalem and
Antioch. The dispute seemed about to end peacefully when one of the
cardinals sent by the Pope was corrupted by the enemy to anathematise
Leo and Armenia. The anathema was publicly repelled by John Medza-
baro the Katholikos; and Leo, too furious to wait for the decision of
the arbitrators, continued the siege of Antioch and captured the town
(1211). After a triumphal entry, he reinstated Ruben-Raymond once
more, and left Antioch for Cilicia, where he sequestrated the property of
the Templars and drove them out of the country.
The other wars of Leo's reign were not of his choosing. Without
provocation, the Sultan of Aleppo, Ghiyāth-ad-Dīn Ghāzī, son of Saladin,
sent an embassy to demand that Leo should do homage or fight. Leo had
the envoys taken for diversion into the country for a few days while he
marched on the sultan, who was peacefully awaiting the return of his
embassy. The sultan's army fled before the sudden attack of the Arme-
nians, and he was obliged to pay Leo a larger tribute than he had hoped
to extort for himself.
Leo's last war, waged against his other old enemy, Iconium, was not
so successful. Too ill to fight himself, he sent the baïle Adam and the
grand-baron Constantine against 'Izz-ad-Dīn Kai-Kā’ūs 1, who had laid
CH. VI.
## p. 174 (#216) ############################################
174
Succession problems after Leo's death
siege to the fortress of Kapan. Adam withdrew from the campaign after
a quarrel with his colleague, and, by a feigned retreat and sudden volte
face, the Turks defeated the Armenians and continued their interrupted
siege of Kapan. But on hearing that Leo was ravaging Iconian territory,
the sultan made haste to return to his own country and to make
peace
with Armenia (1217).
Two years later Leo died, to the sorrow of his people. He had made
Armenia strong and respected, but even in his reign the old ambitions
of the princes were abreast of opportunity. When Leo was away in
Cyprus, visiting the relatives of his queen, Hethum of Lambron revolted
and invaded the king's territory. Leo was strong enough to seize and
imprison the rebel and his two sons on his return, but the revolt shewed
that Leo's power rested on the perilous foundation of his own personality,
and could not withstand the strain applied to it immediately after his
death.
Leo left no son. He had once adopted Ruben-Raymond of Antioch
as heir to the Cilician throne, but he repented of his choice on proving
the youth's incapacity. In the end, he left the crown to his daughter
Zabel under the regency of two Armenian magnates. One of the regents
was soon killed, but his colleague, the grand-baron Constantine, became
for a time the real ruler of the country. Though never crowned himself,
he made and unmade Armenian kings for the next six years (c. 1220-1226).
His first act was to discrown Ruben-Raymond of Antioch, who with
the help of crusaders had entered Tarsus and proclaimed himself king.
Constantine defeated the invaders at Mamistra, and imprisoned Ruben
at Tarsus, where he died. He then gave the crown to Philip of Antioch
(1222), to whom, with the consent of the Armenian princes and ecclesias-
tics, he had married Zabel. But the new king was a failure. He had
promised to conform to the laws and ceremonies of Armenia, but on the
advice of his father, Bohemond the One-Eyed, Prince of Antioch, he
soon broke his word, and began to favour the Latins at the expense of
the Armenians. He sent in secret to his father the royal ornaments of
Armenia and many other national treasures, and then tried to flee with
Zabel. Constantine caught and imprisoned him, and demanded the
return of the stolen heirlooms from Bohemond as the price of Philip's
safety. Bohemond preferred to let his son die in a foreign prison.
For the third time Constantine decided the fate of the Armenian
With the approval, not of the lady but of the Armenian
magnates, he married Zabel to his own son Hethum (Hayton). After
founding a dynasty of his own blood, he discrowned no more kings,
but with Hethum's consent he undertook to reorganise the Cilician
State, deeply rent by the succession question and shorn of part of Isauria
by watchful Iconium. Nevertheless, for the sake of peace, Constantine
made an alliance with the Sultan of Iconium, and conciliated the
principality of Lambron which had revolted in the reign of Leo the
crown.
## p. 175 (#217) ############################################
Armenian alliance with the Mongols
175
Great. Later on in Hethum's reign Constantine again governed Cilicia
in his son's absence.
The change of dynasty brought with it a change in policy. Cilicia
was no longer molested by the Greeks; and the Seljūqs of Iconium,
though troublesome for some years to come, were losing power. The
paramount danger to the Armenians, as to the Seljūqs themselves, came
from the Mamlūks of Egypt, and the crucial question for Armenian
rulers was where to turn for help against this new enemy. After more
than a century's experience the Armenians could not trust their Latin
neighbours as allies. Hethum I (1226–1270), though anxious to keep their
good will, and with his eyes always open to the possibility of help from
the West, put his trust not in the Christians but in the heathen Mongols,
who for half a century were to prove the best friends Armenia ever had.
At the beginning of Hethum's reign, the Mongols were overrunning
Persia, Armenia, and Asia Minor, but they did good service to the
Armenians by conquering the Seljūqs of Iconium and depriving them
of most of their Syrian and Cappadocian territories. Hethum made a
defensive and offensive alliance with Bachu, the Mongol general, and
in 1244 became the vassal of the Khan Ogdai. Ten years later he did
homage in person to Mangu Khan, and cemented the friendship between
the two nations by a long stay at the Mongol court.
Meanwhile the Seljūqs, who had incited Lambron to revolt early in
the reign, took advantage of Hethum's absence to invade Cilicia under
the Sultan 'Izz-ad-Dīn Kai-Kā’ūs II. Hethum defeated the Turks on
his return, seized several important towns, and recovered the whole of
Isauria.
His triumph gave him brief leisure. The rest of his reign was filled
with a struggle against the Mamlūks, whose northward advance was
fortunately opposed by the Mongols. Hethum and the Khan's brother
Hūlāgū joined forces at Edessa to undertake the capture of Jerusalem
from the Mamlūks. The allies defeated Nāşir, Sultan of Aleppo, and
divided his lands between themselves, but all hope of further success
vanished with the Khan's death. Hūlāgū hastened back to Tartary on
receiving the news, leaving his son Abāghā in charge of an army of
20,000 (1259). Baibars, Sultan of Egypt, took the opportunity to enter
Syria, and defeated the Mongols more than once. He seized Antioch
from the Christians and invaded Armenia with a large army. One of
Hethum's sons was slain, the other (afterwards Leo III) was taken captive.
The Mamlūks wasted part of Cilicia, disinterred the bones of Armenian
kings, and retraced their steps with numerous captives and much plunder.
All that Hethum could do was to ransom his son by sacrificing the castle
of Derbessak and by dismantling two other fortresses on the frontier. He
entrusted to Leo the government of the country, and after a turbulent
reign of forty-four years retired into a monastery.
Leo III (1270-1289) had to face the same problems that had troubled
CH, VI.
## p. 176 (#218) ############################################
176
War with the Mamlūks and Seljūqs
his father-internal revolt and the enmity of Egypt and Iconium. In
addition he was scourged by personal illness and by a visitation of plague
and famine. Taking advantage of disaffection among the Armenian
princes, who had revolted unsuccessfully against Leo, Baibars invaded
Cilicia with an army of Turks and Arabs. Leo was deserted and fled to
the mountains, leaving the country defenceless. Sis repulsed the invaders,
but Tarsus capitulated. Its magnificent buildings were set on fire,
thousands of its people were massacred, and thousands more led into
captivity (1274). This disaster was followed by famine and plague. Leo
himself fell ill; his two sons died.
Scarcely healed of his sickness, the king had to face a second Mamlūk
invasion. But this time the Armenian princes rallied to him, and as
usual saved their country from final catastrophe. The Mamlūks were
caught in a trap, and suffered losses so great that the corpses of the
dead prevented the living from taking flight. Baibars, gravely wounded
by an arrow, reached Damascus to die (1276).
The Khan Abāghā sent delegates to congratulate Leo on his victory,
and to propose that he should add Turkey (Rūm or Asia Minor) and
several Mesopotamian towns to his Cilician kingdom. Leo wisely refused
this offer of a vast realm, but he agreed to the Khan's other proposal of
addressing letters to the Pope and the kings of the West to ask them to
join the Mongols for the capture of the Holy Land from the Mamlūks.
On 25 November 1276 John and James Vassal, the messengers of Abāghā
Khan, announced to Edward I of England their approaching arrival in
the West with letters from the Mongol Emperor and the King of Armenia.
After defeating the Seljūgs of Iconium (1278), who had invaded
Armenian territory while the Armenians were repulsing the Mamlūks,
Leo was bound by his alliance to go to the help of the Mongols, who
were again at war with the Mamlūks. The Armenians joined the
Mongol army under Mangū Tīmūr without mishap, and met the
Mamlūks, led by Saif-ad-Dīn Qalā’ūn al-Alfi, at Hims on the Orontes
(1281). The Mamlūks would have been defeated but for the inexplicable
conduct of Mangū Tīmūr, which gave the day to the sultan, already at
the point of flight. As a result, Leo barely escaped to Armenia with
thirty horsemen. The Mongols returned to face the anger of their Khan,
who beheaded both the generals and forced the soldiers to wear women's
clothes. After this disaster the Mongols were hostile to Armenia for
two years, because Abāghā's successor hated the Christians. But on
the accession of another Khan in 1284, the Mongols resumed their old
friendship with the Armenians, and Leo was able to spend the last five
years of his reign in works of peace.
Prosperity vanished with Leo's death. Under his son Hethum
(Hayton) II the One-Eyed (1289–1305), Armenia was in a peculiarly
difficult position. The Mamlūk rulers of Syria and Palestine were bent
on annihilating Armenia, the last bulwark of Christendom. Hethum had
## p. 177 (#219) ############################################
Unstable government of Hethum II
177
no reliable allies. The Mongols were not only losing power, but were
turning towards Islām. The Christians of the West were broken reeds,
for the time of great impulses and united effort was past, even if the
Armenian people had not opposed religious agreement with Rome.
Hethum himself weakened Cilicia by his fitful sovereignty. The author
of a national chronicle in verse, he preferred the part of monk to that of
king, and long refused to be crowned. He abdicated three times, once
to enter a monastery, once to turn Franciscan, once to become “Father
of the King” to his nephew Leo IV. At a fourth juncture abdication
was thrust upon him. As a result he ruled Cilicia for little more than
half the time that elapsed between his accession in 1289 and his death
in 1307. From 1290 to 1291, and again from 1294 to 1296, he entrusted
the government to his brother Thoros III. Thoros in his turn became
a monk, and when Hethum went with him to Constantinople to see their
sister Ritha he left a third brother Smbat (Sempad) to rule Armenia
in his absence (1296–1297). This time he did not intend to abdicate,
but Smbat had himself crowned at Sis with the consent of Ghāzān Khān,
the Mongol ruler of Persia, and married a Tartar princess. On Hethum's
return, Smbat drove him and Thoros out of Cilicia. They appealed in
vain to the khan and to their kinsfolk in Cyprus and Constantinople.
Smbat seized them near Caesarea in Cappadocia and imprisoned them in
the High Fortress (Bardsrberd), where Thoros was put to death and
Hethum blinded and left in chains (1298). This coup d'état was reversed
by a fourth brother Constantine, who dethroned and imprisoned Smbat.
When, however, the Armenians wished to reinstate Hethum, who was
slowly recovering his sight, Constantine repented of his loyalty and tried
to release Smbat. But, with the help of Templars and Hospitallers,
Hethum in his turn seized his brothers and sent them to Constantinople
(1299). After this experience he did not abdicate again for six years.
Such unstable government did not help the Armenians to resist the
Mamlūks. But Hethum was a good soldier when the militant side of
his nature was uppermost, and until 1302, when the Tartar alliance was
lost, he defended Cilicia with moderate success. It was the threat of
invasion by Ashraf, the successor of Qalā'un, that finally decided him to
be crowned (1289). He sent troops to guard the frontiers and appealed
for help to Arghūn Khān and to Pope Nicholas III. Nothing but vague
promises from Philip the Fair came of these appeals, but indirectly
Cilicia was saved by the Christians, who at the Pope's instigation laid
siege to Alexandria. After taking Romkla, the seat of the Katholikos,
and massacring its inhabitants, the sultan hurried back to Egypt with
the Katholikos in his train, and Hethum gained peace and the release of
the Katholikos at the price of several fortresses (1289-1290).
Some years later, during the contention between Hethum and his
brothers, Susamish, viceroy of Damascus, prepared to invade Cilicia at
the head of a Mamlūk army. Hethum scattered his troops and handed
C. MED. H. VOL. IV. CH. VI.
12
## p. 178 (#220) ############################################
178
Loss of the Mongol alliance
him over to Ghāzān Khān. After this success, Hethum and the khan
took the offensive, and tried to seize Syria and Palestine from the
Mamlūks. But the khan suddenly returned to Persia to repress the
revolt of his kinsman Baidū, and left his troops under the command of
Quțlughshāh. Although Hethum and Qutlughshāh were at first successful,
they were finally, after losing many men in the Euphrates, compelled
to retreat.
Ghāzān Khān had promised on leaving Hethum that he would come
back to undertake the conquest of the Holy Land for the Christians, but
in 1302 he died. His successor, Uljāitū, far from fulfilling that promise,
turned Musulman and forswore the ancient alliance with Armenia. The
Mongols made war on the Armenians and spent a year reducing Cilicia
to a heap of ruins. Turks and Mamlūks then invaded the country three
times, and levelled the ruins left standing by the Mongols. Again
Hethum was roused to action. As the enemy were about to depart laden
with plunder, he attacked them and killed or captured nearly seven
thousand of their men. The Sultan of Egypt made peace; and for a
time the Turks disappeared from Cilicia.
All through Hethum's reign, the defence of Cilicia depended upon
the military qualities of himself and of his people alone. He made the
most of his diplomatic opportunities, but with no appreciable result. He
tried hard to keep the Mongol alliance, but even before 1302 the khan
could not help him against Ashraf and would not help him against his
brother Smbat. He made marriage alliances with Constantinople and
Cyprus, giving his sister Mariam in marriage to Michael IX, son of the
Emperor Andronicus, and marrying another sister Zabel to Amaury,
brother of the King of Cyprus. After the loss of the Mongol alliance, he
redoubled the efforts of his predecessor to earn Western help by religious
concession. The Katholikos Grigor VII Anavarzetsi prepared a profession
of faith in nine chapters, and proposed to introduce into the Armenian
Church various changes of ritual conforming to the Roman usage. Before
anything further was done, the Katholikos died and Hethum resigned
the crown to his nephew Leo IV (1305–1307). In 1307 Leo and his
uncle summoned the princes and the ecclesiasties to the First Council of
Sis.
was unconscious mourning for the end of prosperity. It presaged the slow
declension of Armenia from national pride to servitude, and the gradual
passing of the royal house from kingly power to exile and extinction.
Two generations of misfortune (1020-1079) opened with civil war.
Gagik had left two sons. His successor John-Smbat (1020-1040), timid
and effeminate, was attacked and defeated by his younger and more
militant brother Ashot, who was helped by Senekherim Arcruni, King of
Vaspurakan (Van). Peace was concluded through the mediation of the
Katholikos Petros Getadartz and Giorgi, King of the Georgians, but only
by a division of territory. John-Smbat kept Ani and its dependencies,
while Ashot took the part of the kingdom next to Persia and Georgia
(Iberia). On the death of either brother the country was to be re-united
under the survivor.
But Ashot was discontented. He roused the King of Georgia to
attack and imprison John-Smbat, who escaped only by yielding three
fortresses to Giorgi. Still unsatisfied, Ashot feigned mortal illness and
begged his brother to pay him a last visit. Once by Ashot's bedside,
John-Smbat saw the trap and begged for his life. Ashot, deceitful to
the end, freed him merely to hand him over to Prince Apirat, who
1 A copy of the church (still standing) of Aghthamar.
CH. VI.
11-2
## p. 164 (#206) ############################################
164
Armenia threatened by Greeks and Turks
promised to kill him at a secret spot. But, visited by sudden remorse,
Apirat restored the king to Ani and his throne, and fled himself to
Abū’l-Aswār, governor of Dwin, to escape the wrath of Ashot.
While Ashot schemed against his brother, Armenia was threatened
on both sides by different enemies, one old, the other new. The new
assailants were the Seljūq Turks, led against Vaspurakan at the opening
of John-Smbat's reign by Țughril Beg, whose precursor Hasan had
already wasted Mesopotamia. When they had overcome the resistance
of Vaspurakan, they advanced into John-Smbat's territory. At the
beginning of his reign John-Smbat had had an army of 60,000, but the
Armenian generalissimo, Vasak Pahlavuni, had to meet the Turks with
a bare five hundred men. Climbing Mount Serkevil to rest, he died
there, whether by his own hand, or by treason, or by a rock falling from
the mountain while he prayed, is unknown. Meanwhile, Țughril Beg
left Armenia for the time and conquered the whole of Persia.
On the west, Armenia was threatened once again by the Byzantine
Empire. The Turkish advance, instead of inducing the Greeks to help
Armenia, revived in them their old ambition of conquest, with fatal
results not only to the Armenians but to themselves. During the reign
of John-Smbat this ambition was twice fed by Armenian policy.
Conquered and then left by Țughril Beg, Senekherim of Vaspurakan
gave up his kingdom to Basil II (1021) in exchange for the town of
Sebastea (Sīwās) rather than wait to offer a second vain resistance to the
Turks on their inevitable return? . Two years later Basil entered Georgia
to repress a revolt in which John-Smbat had been secretly implicated.
In fear of the Emperor's wrath John-Smbat violated the treaty he had
made with his brother, and through the agency of the Katholikos Petros
Getadartz he gave in writing a promise that after his own death Basil
should inherit Ani. Basil was well pleased. But some years later his
successor Constantine VIII summoned to his death-bed an Armenian
priest named Kirakos, and handed him the inequitable document, saying:
“ Bear this letter to thy king and tell him from me that like other
mortals I find myself on the threshold of Eternity, and I would not
extort the possession of another. Let him take back his kingdom and
give it to his sons. " The mischief might have ended here but for the
treachery of the priest, who kept the letter in his own possession and
finally sold it for a large sum to Michael IV (1034). Much as his dis-
honesty cost the Emperor, it was to cost Armenia more.
As soon as John-Smbat was dead, Michael sent an embassy to claim
Ani and its dependencies. His chance of success was good, because Ani
was divided by two factions. One, led by the generalissimo Vahram
Pahlavuni, wished to crown Gagik, the fourteen-year-old nephew and
heir of John-Smbat; the other intended to give the crown to Vest Sarkis
1 See Macler, F. , Rapport sur une mission scientifique en Arménie russe et en
Arménie turque. . . , Paris 1911, p. 46.
ܕ•
## p. 165 (#207) ############################################
Constantine Monomachus betrays Gagik II
165
Siwni, the regent, or failing him to the Emperor Michael. For the
moment, party differences were sunk in unanimous denial of Byzantine
claims, but Vest Sarkis destroyed this short-lived amity by seizing the
State treasure and several strongholds. Vahram's party won a fairer re-
nown by defeating the Greeks, who were sent by the Emperor to take by
force what his embassy had failed to win by persuasion. One after
another three Greek armies invaded Armenia; each spread desolation far
and wide without conquering Ani. Michael then sent a fourth army
to besiege Ani while the King of the Albanians (Aluans) invaded the
north-east province of Armenia on behalf of the Greeks. Vahram broke
up the invading army by a bold attack. The Greeks, terrified by the fury
of the Armenians, fled in disorder, leaving twenty thousand dead and
wounded beneath the walls of the town. This victory enabled Vahram to
crown Gagik II (1042-1046). With a mere handful of men the boy-
king recovered the State treasure and the citadel of Ani from Vest
Sarkis, whom he cast into prison. Unhindered for the moment by Greek
interference or Armenian treachery, Gagik drove out the Turks and
began to restore order in the country. But unfortunately for himself and
for his people, he was generous enough to forgive Vest Sarkis and to
raise him to honour. Posing as the king's friend, this traitor worked to
alienate the Armenian princes from Gagik and to encourage the hostile
intention of Constantine Monomachus, successor to Michael V.
Constantine copied the Armenian policy of Michael. Failing to secure
Ani by negotiation, he sent an army to seize it. Gagik defeated the
Greeks and forced them to retire. Like Michael, Constantine then sent
a larger army, and at the same time urged Abū’l-Aswār, governor of Dwin,
to harass the Armenians on the east. But Gagik disarmed Abū’l-Aswār
by gifts, and after a short battle put to flight the confident Greeks.
Still Constantine would not give up hope. Where peace and war had
failed, trickery might succeed. Inspired by Vest Sarkis, he asked Gagik
to come to Constantinople to sign a treaty of perpetual peace, swearing
on the cross and the gospels in the presence of Gagik's delegate that he
would be true to his word. Unwilling to go himself, and discouraged by
the Vahramians, the king ultimately yielded to the evil counsel of Vest
Sarkis and passed out of Armenia to his ruin. Before he had spent many
days in Constantinople, the Emperor demanded Ani of him, and, when
he refused it, imprisoned him on an island in the Bosphorus.
When the Armenians heard of this disaster, there was much division
among them. Some wanted to deliver Ani to David Anholin of Albania,
others to Bagarat, King of Georgia and Abasgia, but the Katholikos
Petros, to whom Gagik had entrusted the keys, informed the Emperor
that Ani should be his for a consideration. Once assured of a good price
for his shameful merchandise, Petros sent the forty keys of the bartered
city to Constantine.
Gagik rebelled against the accomplished fact, but finally abdicated
CA. VI.
## p. 166 (#208) ############################################
166
Greater Armenia conquered by the Seljūqs
his throne, receiving in exchange the town of Bizou in Cappadocia. Here
he married the daughter of David, King of Sebastea, and led the wandering
life of an exile. After many years, he learnt one day that the Metro-
politan, Mark of Caesarea, had named his dog Armên in mockery of the
Armenians. Gagik could not stomach the insult, steep it as he must in
the bitterness of exile, in hatred of a rival Church, in contempt for
a people he had never encountered but as conqueror until they overcame
him by guile. To avenge the honour of his country's name, he caused
the dog and the ecclesiastic to be tied up together in a sack, and had
the animal beaten until it bit its master to death. For this crime against
their metropolitan, three Greek brothers seized Gagik by treachery and
hanged him in the castle of Cyzistra (1079). He left two sons and
a grandson, but they did not long survive him. When the last of them
had died in prison, the Bagratuni line was extinct.
During the exile of their king, the Armenians fell a prey to Greek
and Turk. At first, not knowing of his abdication, they resisted the
Greeks and dispersed the army sent under the command of the eunuch
Paracamus to take possession of Ani. But on hearing that Gagik was
never again to enter the country, the Armenians lost all heart, and
allowed Paracamus to possess the city. Once masters of Armenia, the
Greeks committed atrocious cruelties. They exiled or poisoned the
princes, replaced Armenian troops by Greek garrisons, and worked for
the utter destruction of the country.
But they had reckoned without the Turk. Learning of Armenia's
weakness, Țughril Beg returned, and spread ruin and desolation far and
wide for several years. He sacked the fortified town of Smbataberd and
tortured the inhabitants. The rich commercial town of Ardzen shared
the same fate (1049). The Greeks at last determined to make an end of
his savagery. Together with Liparid, King of Georgia, their general
Comnenus offered battle to the Turks near Bayber. But owing to dis-
agreement among the Christians, the Turks were victorious and carried
the King of Georgia into captivity. With no one now to oppose him,
Țughril overran most of Armenia except Ani. Vanand resisted in vain,
but their failure in the siege of Manzikert forced the Turks to retire.
ľughril fell back, only to wreak his vengeance upon Ardskê. His death,
like that of the Arab Afshin long before, brought no relief to Armenia,
for like Afshin, he left a brother, Alp Arslān, to complete his work of
destruction. Alp Arslān besieged Ani unsuccessfully for a time, but
finally overcame its resistance and sacked the city with unimaginable
fury. The river Akhurian ran red with blood; palaces and temples were
set on fire and covered thousands of corpses with their ruins (1064). The
Turks then invited Vanand to submit. Gagik, the king, feigned friend-
ship and made an alliance with Alp Arslān. But like Senekherim of Van
before him, he gave his kingdom to the Eastern Empire in exchange for
a stronghold farther west. In 1065 he transported his family to the
## p. 167 (#209) ############################################
Character of Armeno-Cilician kingdom
167
castle of Dzmndav in Little Armenia. The Greeks, however, could not
save Vanand from the Turks, who pushed their conquests as far as Little
Armenia. Kars, Karin, Bayber, Sebastea, and Caesarea had submitted to
Alp Arslān, when the Emperor Romanus Diogenes opposed him at
Manzikert in 1071. The Greeks were defeated, and the Turks led the
Emperor into captivity.
By the end of the eleventh century not a vestige remained of
Byzantine dominion over Armenia. The Greeks saw too late the fatal
consequences of their selfish hostility towards a country which on south
and east might have served them as a rampart against their most
dangerous foe.
The national history of Greater Armenia ended with the Turkish
conquest and with the extinction of the Bagratuni line. Little by little,
numbers of Armenians withdrew into the Taurus mountains and the
plateau below, but though their country rose again from ruin, it was
only as a small principality in Cilicia. The fruits of Armenian civilisation-
the architectural splendour of Ani, the military strength of Van, the
intellectual life of Kars, the commercial pride of Bitlis and Ardzen-were
no more.
Greater Armenia had been eastern rather than western, coming into
contact with race after race from the east; with Byzantium alone, half
eastern itself, on the west. But the civilisation of Armeno-Cilicia was
western rather than eastern: its political interests were divided between
Europe and Asia, and its history was overshadowed by that of the
Crusades. To the Crusades the change was pre-eminently due. Crusading
leaders stood in every kind of relationship to the new Armenian kingdom.
They befriended and fought it by turns. They used its roads, borrowed
its troops, received its embassies, fought its enemies, and established
feudal governments near it. For a time their influence made it a Euro-
pean State, built on feudal lines, seeking agreement with the Church of
Rome, and sending envoys to the principal courts of Christendom.
But the Armenian Church, which had been the inspiration and main-
stay of the old civilisation, and the family ambitions, which had helped
to destroy it, lived on to prove the continuity of the little State of
Armeno-Cilicia with the old Bagratid kingdom. Nationalist feeling,
stirred to life by fear of religious compromise and by the growth of Latin
influence at court, was to provoke a crisis more than once in centuries
to come.
Among the Armenian migrants to the Taurus mountains, during the
invasions that followed the abdication of Gagik II, was Prince Ruben
(Rupen). He had seen the assassination of Gagik to whom he was related,
and he determined to avenge his kinsman's death on the Greeks.
Collecting a band of companions, whose numbers increased from day to
CH. VI.
## p. 168 (#210) ############################################
168
The foundation of Armeno-Cilicia
day, he took up his stand in the village of Goromozol near the fortress
of Bardsrberd, drove the Greeks out of the Taurus region, and established
his dominion there. The other Armenian princes recognised his supremacy
and helped him to strengthen his power, though many years were to pass
before the Greeks were driven out of all the Cilician towns and strongholds
which they occupied.
Cilicia was divided into two well-marked districts: the plain, rich and
fertile but difficult to defend, and the mountains, covered with forests
and full of defiles. The wealth of the country was in its towns: Adana,
Mamistra, and Anazarbus, for long the chief centres of hostility between
Greeks and Armenians; Ayas with its maritime trade; Tarsus and Sis,
each in turn the capital of the new Armenian State; Germanicea or Marʻash,
and Ulnia or Zeithun. The mountainous region, difficult of approach,
and sprinkled with Syrian, Greek, and Armenian monasteries, easily con-
verted into strongholds, was the surest defence of the province, though
in addition the countryside was protected by strong fortresses such as
Vahka, Bardsrberd, Kapan, and Lambron.
When Ruben died, after fifteen years of wise rule (1080-1095), he was
able to hand on the lordship of Cilicia to his son Constantine (1095-1100),
who first brought Armeno-Cilicia into close contact with Europe. Con-
stantine continued his father's work by capturing Vahka and other for-
tresses from the Greeks and thus increasing his patrimony. But he broke
new ground by making an alliance with the Crusaders, who in return for
his services in pointing out roads and in furnishing supplies, especially
during the siege of Antioch, gave him the title of Marquess.
If the principality thus founded in hostile territory owed its existence
to the energy of an Armenian prince, it owed its survival largely to ex-
ternal causes. In the first place, the Turks were divided. After 1092,
when the Seljūq monarchy split into rival powers, Persia alone was
governed by the direct Seljūq line; other sultans of Seljūq blood ruled
parts of Syria and Asia Minor. Although the Sultans of Iconium or
Rūm were to be a perpetual danger to Cilicia from the beginning of
the twelfth century onwards, the division of the Turks at the close of the
eleventh century broke for a time the force of their original advance, and
gave the first Rubenians a chance to recreate the Armenian State. In
the second place, the Crusades began. The Latin States founded in the East
during the First Crusade checked the Turks, and also prevented the Greeks,
occupied as they were with internal and external difficulties, from making
a permanent reconquest of Cilicia. The Latins did not aim at protecting
the Armenians, with whom indeed they often quarrelled. But as a close
neighbour to a number of small states, nominally friendly but really
inimical to Byzantium, Armenia was no longer isolated. Instead of being
a lonely upstart principality, it became one of many recognised kingdoms,
all hostile to the Greek recovery of the Levant, allentitled to the moral sanc-
tion and expecting the armed support of the mightiest kings of Europe.
## p. 169 (#211) ############################################
Armeno-Cilicia attacked by Greeks and Turks
169
For about twenty-five years after Constantine's death, his two sons,
Thoros I (1100–1123) and Leo I (1123-1135), ruled the Armenians with
great success. As an able administrator Thoros organised the country,
and would have given his time to building churches and palaces if his
enemies had left him in peace. But he had to fight both Greeks and
Turks. He took Anazarbus from the Greeks and repulsed an invasion of
Seljūqs and Turkomans. In his reign the death of Gagik II was at last
avenged: Armenian troops seized the castle of Cyzistra and put to death
the three Greek brothers who had hanged the exiled king. Leo I, who
succeeded Thoros, had not the administrative gifts of his predecessors,
but like them he was a brave soldier. He captured Mamistra and Tarsus,
the chief towns still in Greek hands, and was for a time unquestioned
master of all Cilicia.
But the Greeks were not permanently ousted from Cilicia until 1168.
Leo's dominion was short-lived, owing to the failure of his diplomacy.
He wore his political designs round the Christian principality of Antioch.
At first he joined with Roger of Antioch against the Turks; then, quar-
relling with Roger, he joined the Turks against Antioch (1130). In revenge,
Roger's successor Bohemond II allied with Baldwin, Count of Maríash,
seized Leo by a trick (1131), and as the price of freedom extorted from
him the towns of Mamistra and Adana, a sum of 60,000 piastres, and
one of his sons as hostage. Leo paid the price demanded, but afterwards
re-took by force what he had been compelled to yield to treachery.
Meanwhile Antioch attracted the envious eye of the Emperor John
Comnenus. First, he tried to gain it for the Empire by a marriage project.
Failing in this, he fought for it. This time Leo joined with Antioch
against the Greeks, but again he suffered for his choice. While he was
encamped before Seleucia at the head of Latin and Armenian troops, the
Emperor invaded Cilicia, took Tarsus, Mamistra, and Adana, and had
already begun to attack Anazarbus when Leo hurried back to relieve the
city. The Emperor despaired of capturing it until his son Isaac advised
him to cover his engines of war with clay to prevent them from being
broken. This device succeeded. Leo retired to the castle of Vahka, and
in spite of help from Antioch was forced to surrender (1135). Antioch
recognised the Emperor's supremacy, and Leo was put into chains and
sent to a Byzantine prison, where he died six years later (1141). Two of
his sons were imprisoned with him. The elder was tortured and put to
death, but Thoros, the younger, survived to deliver his country.
Before deliverance came, the Armenians were tormented for nine long
years by their old enemies, the Greeks and the Turks. Leo's misfortune
gave Cilicia to the Greeks, who pillaged and destroyed strongholds and
towns, convents and churches. The Turks and even the Latins joined in
demolishing the laborious work of the first Rubenians. But when the
Turkish Emir Ahmad Malik had seized Vahka and Kapan, the Emperor
returned to Cilicia, bringing with him Thoros, son of Leo I. In this
CH, VI.
## p. 170 (#212) ############################################
170
Thoros II successful against the Greeks
campaign, however, the Emperor was killed while hunting, and the Greek
army retreated, while Thoros managed to escape and disclosed his identity
to an Armenian priest.
Thoros II (1145–1168) had to reconquer his kingdom from the Greeks
before he could rule it. At the head of ten thousand Armenians and with
the help of his brothers, Stephanê (Sdephanê) and Mleh, who had been at
the court of Nūr-ad-Din, Sultan of Aleppo, he recaptured the fortresses
of Vahka, Simanakla, and Arindz. One by one all the great cities of the
plain opened their gates. Manuel Comnenus hastened to bring his Hun-
garian war to a close and to send his cousin the Caesar Andronicus to
oppose Thoros, who retired to Mamistra on the approach of the Greek
army. The town was without ammunition, and Thoros undertook to re-
cognise the supremacy of the Greeks if they would respect his paternal
rights. Andronicus refused, and threatened to bind Thoros with his
father's fetters. But on a dark, rainy night Thoros breached the walls
of the town and surprised the enemy at their revels. Andronicus escaped
with a handful of men, but Thoros pursued him as far as Antioch, and
then returned to Mamistra. He held to ransom the Greek nobles he had
captured, and divided the money among his soldiers, telling the wonder-
ing Greeks that he did so in order that his men might one day recapture
them. Among the prisoners was Oshin, Lord of Lambron, father of the
famous Nerses Lambronatsi. Oshin paid twenty thousand pieces of gold
as half his ransom, and for the second half left his son Hethum (Hayton)
as hostage. Thoros had later so great an affection for Hethum that he
gave him his daughter in marriage, and regarding the payment of Oshin's
debt as the girl's dowry he sent them both to Lambron, hoping thus to
win the friendship of Oshin and his family. This hope was not fulfilled,
for Lambron, with its leanings towards Byzantium, was destined to give
much trouble to future rulers of Armenia.
Manuel's next step was to induce other rulers to attack Thoros. First
he bribed Masóūd I, Sultan of Iconium, to oppose him. The Sultan twice
invaded Cilicia, only to be repulsed, once by the sight of Thoros' prepara-
tions, once by plague (1154). The Emperor then turned to the Latins,
and excited Reginald of Chatillon, regent of Antioch, to fight against
Armenia. Thoros and Reginald fought a bloody but doubtful battle at
Alexandretta, but Reginald, not receiving the Emperor's promised help,
made peace with Thoros and marched against the Greeks. He made a
naval attack on Cyprus and inflicted great injury on its defenceless
people. This diversion enabled Thoros to consolidate his power and even
to extend it in the mountainous districts of Phrygia and Isauria.
Manuel was greatly dissatisfied with the unexpected result. He sent
against Thoros another army, which failed like the first, and then came
to Cilicia in person. Warned in time by a Latin monk, Thoros put his
family and his treasure in the stronghold of Tajki-Gar (Rock of Tajik),
and hid himself in the mountains while the Emperor deprived him of his
## p. 171 (#213) ############################################
The Greeks driven from Cilicia
171
hardly-won cities. When peace was finally made through the mediation
of Baldwin III, King of Jerusalem, Thoros was restored to power under
the title of Pansebastos and Manuel kept the two towns of Anazarbus and
Mamistra (1159).
But the barbarity of the Greeks provoked fresh hostilities which re-
sulted in their expulsion from the country. While Thoros helped the
crusaders against the Sultan of Aleppo, his brother Stephanê (Sdephanê)
re-took the towns which the Sultan of Iconium had captured from the
Christians. Jealous of Stephanê's success, the Emperor's lieutenant, An-
dronicus Euphorbenus? , invited him to a feast and cast him into a cauldron
of boiling water (1163). Once more a powerful Greek army was sent to
Cilicia, but Thoros determined to avenge his brother's death, and, by de-
feating the invaders in a great battle near Tarsus, brought to a successful
close his life-long struggle against Byzantium. Greek domination in
Cilicia was at an end.
Thoros died regretted by all, leaving a child, Ruben II, to succeed him,
and a brother to undo his work. This brother, Mleh, had been a Templar
and a Catholic, and then became a leader of Turkoman nomads. He
spread destruction wherever he went. The young king took refuge with
the Katholikos at Romkla, where he soon died. Mleh openly joined the
Sultan Nūr-ad-Dīn, invaded Cilicia, and did great harm to the Armenians.
But he made himself so unpopular by his cruelty that his own soldiers
killed him (1175).
After his death the Armenians filled his place by his nephew
Ruben III (1175-1185), the eldest son of the Stephanê who had been cast
into boiling water by the Greeks. Of peaceful disposition, Ruben none
the less freed his country from external attack; but from his Armenian
enemies he was only saved by his brother Leo.
Although the Greeks had been driven out of Cilicia, some of the
Armenian principalities, Lambron among them, still looked upon the
Emperor as their suzerain. Hethum of Lambron was related to the Ru-
benians by marriage, but he preferred Byzantine to Armenian supremacy,
and asked Bohemond III of Antioch to help him against Ruben III. Bohe-
mond seized Ruben by treachery, imprisoned him at Antioch, and marched
against the Armenians, hoping to conquer Cilicia, not for Hethum or
the Emperor, but for himself. Leo, however, repulsed him, and forced
him and Hethum to make peace with Ruben. On his release, Ruben de-
voted himself to the welfare of his people, who loved him for his liberality
and wise administration. He built towns and convents, and finally retired
into a monastery.
Ruben's successor was his brother Leo II (1185–1219), surnamed the
Great or the Magnificent, already known as his country's defender, and
destined to raise the lordship or barony of Armeno-Cilicia to the status
1 In another view this atrocity is attributed to Andronicus Comnenus. See
infra, Chapter XII, p. 375.
CH. VI.
## p. 172 (#214) ############################################
172
European connexions of Leo the Great
of a kingdom. His long reign of thirty-four years fully justified his change
of style, for he gave his country a stability and prosperity that were un-
paralleled in its annals.
His first work was to free the Armenians from Muslim pressure. He
conquered Rustam, Sultan of Iconiun, who suddenly invaded Cilicia, and
two years
after his accession he drove back the united forces of the Sultans
of Aleppo and Damascus (1187). When he was once more at peace
he
built fortresses on the frontiers and filled them with well-trained garrisons.
With Cilicia he incorporated Isauria, which had been seized by the Seljūqs
of Rūm.
In diplomacy, his sovereign purpose was to obtain the help of Western
Europe against the Greeks and Muslims. He sought the friendship of the
European princes by means of marriage-alliances. His niece Aliza was
married to Raymond, son of Bohemond of Antioch; and he himself
married Isabella of Austria. Later, he repudiated Isabella and married
Sibylla, daughter of Amaury of Lusignan, King of Cyprus. Long before
his second marriage he had made a friend of Frederick Barbarossa, who
at the outset of his ill-starred Crusade asked for Leo's help in return for
the promise of a crown. Leo quickly sent abundant provisions and am-
munition to the Crusaders, and when the imperial army entered Isauria he
himself went with the Katholikos to greet the Emperor. They never met,
for Barbarossa had been drowned on the way, bathing in the Cali-
cadnus.
After some years, Frederick's son Henry VI and Pope Celestine III
sent the promised crown to Leo, and, at the feast of the Epiphany in 1198,
he was consecrated in the cathedral of Sis? by the Katholikos Grigor VII
Apirat in the presence of the Archbishop of Mayence, Conrad of Wittels-
bach, Papal legate and representative of the Emperor? The Eastern Em-
peror Alexius Angelus also sent Leo a crown in confirmation of Armenian
authority over Cilicia, so long disputed by the Greeks.
Leo was anxious to include the Pope among his European friends.
Many letters passed between the Popes on the one side and the Katholikos
and King of Armenia on the other with a view to uniting the Roman and
Armenian Churches. But the Armenian authorities, willing themselves
to make concessions to Rome, were opposed by the Armenian people,
who strenuously defended their Church against the authority of the
Papacy. In the end, the sole result of attempted reconciliation was an
embitterment of religious feeling.
King by the consent of Europe, Leo made his country a European
State. He chose a new seat for his government, removing it from Tarsus
to Sis, where he entertained German, English, French, and Italian captains,
who came to serve under the Armenian banner. In defining the relations
1 Some historians say Tarsus.
2 A list of the prelates, lords, and ambassadors who attended the ceremony will
be found in the Chronicle of Smbat.
## p. 173 (#215) ############################################
Leo's achievements in peace and war
173
of the princes to the royal house, in establishing military and household
posts, in creating tribunals, and in fixing the quota of taxes and tribute,
he copied to a great extent the organisation of the Latin princes of Syria.
One of the fruits of his alliance with Bohemond of Antioch was the
adoption of the Assises of Antioch as the law of Armeno-Cilicia.
In addition, Leo encouraged industry, navigation, and commerce. He
cultivated commercial relations with the West, and by granting privileges
to Genoese and Venetian merchants he spread Cilician trade throughout
Europe. Mindful, too, of the good works of his forefathers, he founded
orphanages and hospitals and schools, and increased the number of con-
vents, where skilled calligraphists and miniaturists added lustre to the
prosperity of his reign.
Leo's reputation, founded on peaceful achievement, is all the greater
because he attained it in spite of intermittent wars. Of his own will he
entered on a long succession-struggle in Antioch to defend the rights of
his young kinsman, Ruben-Raymond, against the usurpation of an uncle,
Bohemond IV the One-Eyed, Count of Tripolis, who had seized the govern-
ment of Antioch with the help of Templars and Hospitallers. Leo recap-
tured Antioch and restored Ruben-Raymond to power. Bohemond
returned, drove out his nephew a second time, and bribed the Sultan of
Iconium, Rukn-ad-Dīn, to invade Cilicia. Though deserted at the last
minute by the Templars, for whose services he had paid twenty thousand
Byzantine pounds, Leo forced the Seljūqs to retire with serious losses, and
turned again to Antioch. While he was preparing to besiege the town,
he referred the succession question to Innocent III, who entrusted its
solution to the King of Jerusalem and the Patriarchs of Jerusalem and
Antioch. The dispute seemed about to end peacefully when one of the
cardinals sent by the Pope was corrupted by the enemy to anathematise
Leo and Armenia. The anathema was publicly repelled by John Medza-
baro the Katholikos; and Leo, too furious to wait for the decision of
the arbitrators, continued the siege of Antioch and captured the town
(1211). After a triumphal entry, he reinstated Ruben-Raymond once
more, and left Antioch for Cilicia, where he sequestrated the property of
the Templars and drove them out of the country.
The other wars of Leo's reign were not of his choosing. Without
provocation, the Sultan of Aleppo, Ghiyāth-ad-Dīn Ghāzī, son of Saladin,
sent an embassy to demand that Leo should do homage or fight. Leo had
the envoys taken for diversion into the country for a few days while he
marched on the sultan, who was peacefully awaiting the return of his
embassy. The sultan's army fled before the sudden attack of the Arme-
nians, and he was obliged to pay Leo a larger tribute than he had hoped
to extort for himself.
Leo's last war, waged against his other old enemy, Iconium, was not
so successful. Too ill to fight himself, he sent the baïle Adam and the
grand-baron Constantine against 'Izz-ad-Dīn Kai-Kā’ūs 1, who had laid
CH. VI.
## p. 174 (#216) ############################################
174
Succession problems after Leo's death
siege to the fortress of Kapan. Adam withdrew from the campaign after
a quarrel with his colleague, and, by a feigned retreat and sudden volte
face, the Turks defeated the Armenians and continued their interrupted
siege of Kapan. But on hearing that Leo was ravaging Iconian territory,
the sultan made haste to return to his own country and to make
peace
with Armenia (1217).
Two years later Leo died, to the sorrow of his people. He had made
Armenia strong and respected, but even in his reign the old ambitions
of the princes were abreast of opportunity. When Leo was away in
Cyprus, visiting the relatives of his queen, Hethum of Lambron revolted
and invaded the king's territory. Leo was strong enough to seize and
imprison the rebel and his two sons on his return, but the revolt shewed
that Leo's power rested on the perilous foundation of his own personality,
and could not withstand the strain applied to it immediately after his
death.
Leo left no son. He had once adopted Ruben-Raymond of Antioch
as heir to the Cilician throne, but he repented of his choice on proving
the youth's incapacity. In the end, he left the crown to his daughter
Zabel under the regency of two Armenian magnates. One of the regents
was soon killed, but his colleague, the grand-baron Constantine, became
for a time the real ruler of the country. Though never crowned himself,
he made and unmade Armenian kings for the next six years (c. 1220-1226).
His first act was to discrown Ruben-Raymond of Antioch, who with
the help of crusaders had entered Tarsus and proclaimed himself king.
Constantine defeated the invaders at Mamistra, and imprisoned Ruben
at Tarsus, where he died. He then gave the crown to Philip of Antioch
(1222), to whom, with the consent of the Armenian princes and ecclesias-
tics, he had married Zabel. But the new king was a failure. He had
promised to conform to the laws and ceremonies of Armenia, but on the
advice of his father, Bohemond the One-Eyed, Prince of Antioch, he
soon broke his word, and began to favour the Latins at the expense of
the Armenians. He sent in secret to his father the royal ornaments of
Armenia and many other national treasures, and then tried to flee with
Zabel. Constantine caught and imprisoned him, and demanded the
return of the stolen heirlooms from Bohemond as the price of Philip's
safety. Bohemond preferred to let his son die in a foreign prison.
For the third time Constantine decided the fate of the Armenian
With the approval, not of the lady but of the Armenian
magnates, he married Zabel to his own son Hethum (Hayton). After
founding a dynasty of his own blood, he discrowned no more kings,
but with Hethum's consent he undertook to reorganise the Cilician
State, deeply rent by the succession question and shorn of part of Isauria
by watchful Iconium. Nevertheless, for the sake of peace, Constantine
made an alliance with the Sultan of Iconium, and conciliated the
principality of Lambron which had revolted in the reign of Leo the
crown.
## p. 175 (#217) ############################################
Armenian alliance with the Mongols
175
Great. Later on in Hethum's reign Constantine again governed Cilicia
in his son's absence.
The change of dynasty brought with it a change in policy. Cilicia
was no longer molested by the Greeks; and the Seljūqs of Iconium,
though troublesome for some years to come, were losing power. The
paramount danger to the Armenians, as to the Seljūqs themselves, came
from the Mamlūks of Egypt, and the crucial question for Armenian
rulers was where to turn for help against this new enemy. After more
than a century's experience the Armenians could not trust their Latin
neighbours as allies. Hethum I (1226–1270), though anxious to keep their
good will, and with his eyes always open to the possibility of help from
the West, put his trust not in the Christians but in the heathen Mongols,
who for half a century were to prove the best friends Armenia ever had.
At the beginning of Hethum's reign, the Mongols were overrunning
Persia, Armenia, and Asia Minor, but they did good service to the
Armenians by conquering the Seljūqs of Iconium and depriving them
of most of their Syrian and Cappadocian territories. Hethum made a
defensive and offensive alliance with Bachu, the Mongol general, and
in 1244 became the vassal of the Khan Ogdai. Ten years later he did
homage in person to Mangu Khan, and cemented the friendship between
the two nations by a long stay at the Mongol court.
Meanwhile the Seljūqs, who had incited Lambron to revolt early in
the reign, took advantage of Hethum's absence to invade Cilicia under
the Sultan 'Izz-ad-Dīn Kai-Kā’ūs II. Hethum defeated the Turks on
his return, seized several important towns, and recovered the whole of
Isauria.
His triumph gave him brief leisure. The rest of his reign was filled
with a struggle against the Mamlūks, whose northward advance was
fortunately opposed by the Mongols. Hethum and the Khan's brother
Hūlāgū joined forces at Edessa to undertake the capture of Jerusalem
from the Mamlūks. The allies defeated Nāşir, Sultan of Aleppo, and
divided his lands between themselves, but all hope of further success
vanished with the Khan's death. Hūlāgū hastened back to Tartary on
receiving the news, leaving his son Abāghā in charge of an army of
20,000 (1259). Baibars, Sultan of Egypt, took the opportunity to enter
Syria, and defeated the Mongols more than once. He seized Antioch
from the Christians and invaded Armenia with a large army. One of
Hethum's sons was slain, the other (afterwards Leo III) was taken captive.
The Mamlūks wasted part of Cilicia, disinterred the bones of Armenian
kings, and retraced their steps with numerous captives and much plunder.
All that Hethum could do was to ransom his son by sacrificing the castle
of Derbessak and by dismantling two other fortresses on the frontier. He
entrusted to Leo the government of the country, and after a turbulent
reign of forty-four years retired into a monastery.
Leo III (1270-1289) had to face the same problems that had troubled
CH, VI.
## p. 176 (#218) ############################################
176
War with the Mamlūks and Seljūqs
his father-internal revolt and the enmity of Egypt and Iconium. In
addition he was scourged by personal illness and by a visitation of plague
and famine. Taking advantage of disaffection among the Armenian
princes, who had revolted unsuccessfully against Leo, Baibars invaded
Cilicia with an army of Turks and Arabs. Leo was deserted and fled to
the mountains, leaving the country defenceless. Sis repulsed the invaders,
but Tarsus capitulated. Its magnificent buildings were set on fire,
thousands of its people were massacred, and thousands more led into
captivity (1274). This disaster was followed by famine and plague. Leo
himself fell ill; his two sons died.
Scarcely healed of his sickness, the king had to face a second Mamlūk
invasion. But this time the Armenian princes rallied to him, and as
usual saved their country from final catastrophe. The Mamlūks were
caught in a trap, and suffered losses so great that the corpses of the
dead prevented the living from taking flight. Baibars, gravely wounded
by an arrow, reached Damascus to die (1276).
The Khan Abāghā sent delegates to congratulate Leo on his victory,
and to propose that he should add Turkey (Rūm or Asia Minor) and
several Mesopotamian towns to his Cilician kingdom. Leo wisely refused
this offer of a vast realm, but he agreed to the Khan's other proposal of
addressing letters to the Pope and the kings of the West to ask them to
join the Mongols for the capture of the Holy Land from the Mamlūks.
On 25 November 1276 John and James Vassal, the messengers of Abāghā
Khan, announced to Edward I of England their approaching arrival in
the West with letters from the Mongol Emperor and the King of Armenia.
After defeating the Seljūgs of Iconium (1278), who had invaded
Armenian territory while the Armenians were repulsing the Mamlūks,
Leo was bound by his alliance to go to the help of the Mongols, who
were again at war with the Mamlūks. The Armenians joined the
Mongol army under Mangū Tīmūr without mishap, and met the
Mamlūks, led by Saif-ad-Dīn Qalā’ūn al-Alfi, at Hims on the Orontes
(1281). The Mamlūks would have been defeated but for the inexplicable
conduct of Mangū Tīmūr, which gave the day to the sultan, already at
the point of flight. As a result, Leo barely escaped to Armenia with
thirty horsemen. The Mongols returned to face the anger of their Khan,
who beheaded both the generals and forced the soldiers to wear women's
clothes. After this disaster the Mongols were hostile to Armenia for
two years, because Abāghā's successor hated the Christians. But on
the accession of another Khan in 1284, the Mongols resumed their old
friendship with the Armenians, and Leo was able to spend the last five
years of his reign in works of peace.
Prosperity vanished with Leo's death. Under his son Hethum
(Hayton) II the One-Eyed (1289–1305), Armenia was in a peculiarly
difficult position. The Mamlūk rulers of Syria and Palestine were bent
on annihilating Armenia, the last bulwark of Christendom. Hethum had
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Unstable government of Hethum II
177
no reliable allies. The Mongols were not only losing power, but were
turning towards Islām. The Christians of the West were broken reeds,
for the time of great impulses and united effort was past, even if the
Armenian people had not opposed religious agreement with Rome.
Hethum himself weakened Cilicia by his fitful sovereignty. The author
of a national chronicle in verse, he preferred the part of monk to that of
king, and long refused to be crowned. He abdicated three times, once
to enter a monastery, once to turn Franciscan, once to become “Father
of the King” to his nephew Leo IV. At a fourth juncture abdication
was thrust upon him. As a result he ruled Cilicia for little more than
half the time that elapsed between his accession in 1289 and his death
in 1307. From 1290 to 1291, and again from 1294 to 1296, he entrusted
the government to his brother Thoros III. Thoros in his turn became
a monk, and when Hethum went with him to Constantinople to see their
sister Ritha he left a third brother Smbat (Sempad) to rule Armenia
in his absence (1296–1297). This time he did not intend to abdicate,
but Smbat had himself crowned at Sis with the consent of Ghāzān Khān,
the Mongol ruler of Persia, and married a Tartar princess. On Hethum's
return, Smbat drove him and Thoros out of Cilicia. They appealed in
vain to the khan and to their kinsfolk in Cyprus and Constantinople.
Smbat seized them near Caesarea in Cappadocia and imprisoned them in
the High Fortress (Bardsrberd), where Thoros was put to death and
Hethum blinded and left in chains (1298). This coup d'état was reversed
by a fourth brother Constantine, who dethroned and imprisoned Smbat.
When, however, the Armenians wished to reinstate Hethum, who was
slowly recovering his sight, Constantine repented of his loyalty and tried
to release Smbat. But, with the help of Templars and Hospitallers,
Hethum in his turn seized his brothers and sent them to Constantinople
(1299). After this experience he did not abdicate again for six years.
Such unstable government did not help the Armenians to resist the
Mamlūks. But Hethum was a good soldier when the militant side of
his nature was uppermost, and until 1302, when the Tartar alliance was
lost, he defended Cilicia with moderate success. It was the threat of
invasion by Ashraf, the successor of Qalā'un, that finally decided him to
be crowned (1289). He sent troops to guard the frontiers and appealed
for help to Arghūn Khān and to Pope Nicholas III. Nothing but vague
promises from Philip the Fair came of these appeals, but indirectly
Cilicia was saved by the Christians, who at the Pope's instigation laid
siege to Alexandria. After taking Romkla, the seat of the Katholikos,
and massacring its inhabitants, the sultan hurried back to Egypt with
the Katholikos in his train, and Hethum gained peace and the release of
the Katholikos at the price of several fortresses (1289-1290).
Some years later, during the contention between Hethum and his
brothers, Susamish, viceroy of Damascus, prepared to invade Cilicia at
the head of a Mamlūk army. Hethum scattered his troops and handed
C. MED. H. VOL. IV. CH. VI.
12
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178
Loss of the Mongol alliance
him over to Ghāzān Khān. After this success, Hethum and the khan
took the offensive, and tried to seize Syria and Palestine from the
Mamlūks. But the khan suddenly returned to Persia to repress the
revolt of his kinsman Baidū, and left his troops under the command of
Quțlughshāh. Although Hethum and Qutlughshāh were at first successful,
they were finally, after losing many men in the Euphrates, compelled
to retreat.
Ghāzān Khān had promised on leaving Hethum that he would come
back to undertake the conquest of the Holy Land for the Christians, but
in 1302 he died. His successor, Uljāitū, far from fulfilling that promise,
turned Musulman and forswore the ancient alliance with Armenia. The
Mongols made war on the Armenians and spent a year reducing Cilicia
to a heap of ruins. Turks and Mamlūks then invaded the country three
times, and levelled the ruins left standing by the Mongols. Again
Hethum was roused to action. As the enemy were about to depart laden
with plunder, he attacked them and killed or captured nearly seven
thousand of their men. The Sultan of Egypt made peace; and for a
time the Turks disappeared from Cilicia.
All through Hethum's reign, the defence of Cilicia depended upon
the military qualities of himself and of his people alone. He made the
most of his diplomatic opportunities, but with no appreciable result. He
tried hard to keep the Mongol alliance, but even before 1302 the khan
could not help him against Ashraf and would not help him against his
brother Smbat. He made marriage alliances with Constantinople and
Cyprus, giving his sister Mariam in marriage to Michael IX, son of the
Emperor Andronicus, and marrying another sister Zabel to Amaury,
brother of the King of Cyprus. After the loss of the Mongol alliance, he
redoubled the efforts of his predecessor to earn Western help by religious
concession. The Katholikos Grigor VII Anavarzetsi prepared a profession
of faith in nine chapters, and proposed to introduce into the Armenian
Church various changes of ritual conforming to the Roman usage. Before
anything further was done, the Katholikos died and Hethum resigned
the crown to his nephew Leo IV (1305–1307). In 1307 Leo and his
uncle summoned the princes and the ecclesiasties to the First Council of
Sis.
