But when
he built the cathedral of Kars, he brought not peace but a sword to his
countrymen.
he built the cathedral of Kars, he brought not peace but a sword to his
countrymen.
Cambridge Medieval History - v4 - Eastern Roman Empire
Though driven by eastern pressure as far west as Cilicia, where it
was in touch with the Crusaders, Armenia never held more than a doubt-
ful place in the state-system of medieval Europe. Sooner than sink their
identity in Greek or Roman Church, the Armenians more than once
chose the friendship of infidels. On the other hand, whether as neigh-
bours or as enemies, as allies or as conquerors, the races of the East could
never turn the Armenians from their faith. When Armenia ceased to
exist as a State, its people kept alive their nationality in their Church. As
with the Jews, their ecclesiastical obstinacy was at once their danger and
their strength: it left them friendless, but it enabled them to survive
political extinction.
Isolated by religion, Armenia was also perpetually divided against
itself by its rival princes. Like the Church, the numerous princely
houses both preserved and weakened their country. They prevented
the foundation of a unified national State. But a large Power stretching
perhaps from Cappadocia to the Caspian borders, and disabled by ill-
defined frontiers, could never have outfaced the hostility of Europe and
CH. VI.
## p. 154 (#196) ############################################
154
Periods of Armenian history
Asia. A collection of small principalities, grouped round rocky strong-
holds difficult of access, had always, even after wholesale conquest, a
latent faculty of recovery in the energy of its powerful families. The
Arabs could have destroyed a single royal line, but, slaughter as they
might, Armenia was never leaderless: they could not exterminate its
nobility. The political history of Armenia, especially during the first
half of the Middle Ages, is a history of great families. And this helps to
explain the puzzling movement of Armenian boundaries—a movement
due not only to pressure from outside, but also to the short-lived uprising,
first of one prince, then of another, amidst the ruin, widespread and
repeated, of his country.
During the triumph of Rome and for many generations of Rome's
decline Armenia was ruled by a national dynasty related to the Arsacidae,
kings of Parthia (B. c. 149-A. D. 428). The country had been for many
years a victim to the wars and diplomacy of Persia and Rome when in
A. D. 386–7 it was partitioned by Sapor III and the Emperor Theodosius.
From 387 to 428 the Arsacid kings of Armenia were vassals of Persia,
while the westernmost part of their kingdom was incorporated in the
Roman Empire and ruled by a count.
The history of the thousand years that followed (428-1473) is sketched
in this chapter. It may be divided into five distinct periods. First came
long years of anarchy, during which Armenia had no independent
existence but was the prey of Persians, Greeks, and Arabs (428-885).
Four and a half centuries of foreign domination were then succeeded by
nearly two centuries of autonomy. During this second period Armenia
was ruled from Transcaucasia by the national dynasty of the Bagratuni.
After 1046, when the Bagratid kingdom was conquered by the Greeks,
who were soon dispossessed by the Turks, Greater Armenia never re-
covered its political life.
Meanwhile the third period of Armenia's medieval history had opened
in Asia Minor, where a new Armenian State was founded in Cilicia by
Prince Ruben, a kinsman of the Bagratuni. From 1080–1340 Rubenian
and Hethumian princes ruled Armeno-Cilicia, first as lords or barons
(1080-1198), then as kings (1198–1342). During this period the Ar-
menians engaged in a successful struggle with the Greeks, and in a pro-
longed and losing contest with the Seljūqs and Mamlūks. Throughout
these
years the relations between the Armenian rulers and the Latin king-
doms of Syria were so close that up to a point the history of Armeno-Cilicia
may be considered merely as an episode in the history of the Crusades.
This view is strengthened by the events of the fourth period (1342–1373),
during which Cilicia was ruled by the crusading family of the Lusignans.
When the Lusignan dynasty was overthrown by the Mamlūks in 1375,
the Armenians lost their political existence once more. In the fifth and
last period of their medieval history (1375–1473), they suffered the
## p. 155 (#197) ############################################
Persians and Greeks in Armenia
155
horrors of a Tartar invasion under Tamerlane and finally passed under
the yoke of the Ottoman Turks.
When Ardashes, the last Arsacid vassal-king, was deposed in 428,
Armenia was governed directly by the Persians, who already partly con-
trolled the country. No strict chronology has yet been fixed for the cen-
turies of anarchy which ensued (428-885), but it appears that Persian rule
lasted for about two centuries (428-633). Byzantine rule followed,
spreading eastward from Roman Armenia, and after two generations
(633–693) the Arabs replaced the Greeks and held the Armenians in
subjection until 862.
In this long period of foreign rule, the Armenians invariably found
a change of masters a change for the worse. The Persians ruled the
country though a succession of Marzpans, or military commanders of the
frontiers, who also had to keep order and to collect revenue. With a strong
guard under their own command, they did not destroy the old national
militia nor take away the privileges of the nobility, and at first they
allowed full liberty to the Katholikos and his bishops. As long as the
Persians governed with such tolerance, they might fairly hope to fuse the
Armenian nation with their own. But a change of religious policy under
Yezdegerd II and Piroz roused the Armenians to defend their faith in a
series of religious wars lasting until the end of the sixth century, during
which Vardan with his 1036 companions perished for the Christian faith
in the terrible battle of Avaraïr (454). But, whether defeated or victorious,
the Armenians never exchanged their Christianity for Zoroastrianism,
On the whole, the Marzpans ruled Armenia as well as they could. In
spite of the religious persecution and of a dispute about the Council of
Chalcedon between the Armenians and their fellow-Christians in Georgia,
the Armenian Church more than held its ground, and ruined churches and
monasteries were restored or rebuilt towards the opening of the seventh
century. Of the later Marzpans some bore Armenian names. The last
of them belonged to the Bagratuni family which was destined to sustain
the national existence of Armenia for many generations against untold
odds. But this gleam of hope was extinguished by the fall of the Persian
Empire before the Arabs. For when they conquered Persia, Armenia
turned to Byzantium, and was ruled for sixty years by officials who
received the rank of Curopalates and were appointed by the Emperor
(633-693). The Curopalates, it appears, was entrusted with the civil
administration of the country, while the military command was held by
an Armenian General of the Forces.
Though the Curopalates, too, seems to have been always Armenian,
the despotic yoke of the Greeks was even harder to bear than the burden
of religious wars imposed by the Persians. If the Persians had tried
to make the Armenians worship the Sacred Fire, the Greeks were equally
bent on forcing them to renounce the Eutychian heresy. As usual, the
CH. VI.
## p. 156 (#198) ############################################
156
The Arab Conquest
Armenians refused to yield. The Emperor Constantine came himself
to Armenia in 647, but his visit did nothing to strengthen Byzantine
authority. The advance of the Arabs, who had begun to invade Armenia
ten years earlier under 'Abd-ar-Raḥīm, made stable government im-
possible, for, sooner than merge themselves in the Greek Church, the
Armenians sought Muslim protection. But the Arabs exacted so heavy
a tribute that Armenia turned again to the Eastern Empire. As a result,
the Armenians suffered equally from Greeks and Arabs. When they
paid tribute to the Arabs, the Greeks invaded and devastated their land.
When they turned to the Greeks, the Arabs punished their success and
failure alike by invasion and rapine. Finally, at the close of the seventh
century, the Armenian people submitted absolutely to the Caliphate.
The Curopalates had fled, the General of the Forces and the Patriarch
(Katholikos) Sahak IV were prisoners in Damascus, and some of the
Armenian princes had been tortured and put to death.
A period of unqualified tyranny followed. The Arabs intended to
rivet the chains of abject submission upon Armenia, and to extort from
its helplessness the greatest possible amount of revenue. Ostikans, or
governors, foreigners almost without exception, ruled the country for
Baghdad. These officials commanded an army, and were supposed to
collect the taxes and to keep the people submissive. They loaded Armenia
with heavy imposts, and tried to destroy the princely families by im-
prisoning and killing their men and confiscating their possessions. Under
such treatment the Armenians were occasionally cowed but usually
rebellious. Their national existence, manifest in rebellion, was upheld by
the princes. First one, then another, revolted against the Muslims, made
overtures to the enemies of Baghdad, and aspired to re-found the kingdom
of Armenia.
Shortly after the Arab conquest, the Armenians turned once more to
their old masters, the Greeks. With the help of Leo the Isaurian, Smbat
(Sempad) Bagratuni defeated the Arabs, and was commissioned to rule
Armenia by the Emperor. But after a severe struggle the Muslims re-
gained their dominion, and sent the Arab commander Qāsim to punish
the Armenians (704). He carried out his task with oriental ferocity.
He set fire to the church of Nakhijevan, into which he had driven the
princes and nobles, and then pillaged the country and sent many of the
people into captivity.
These savage reprisals were typical of Arab misrule for the next forty
years, and after a peaceful interval during which a friendly Ostikan,
Marwān, entrusted the government of Armenia to Ashot Bagratuni, the
reign of terror started afresh (758). But, in defiance of extortion and
cruelty, insurrection followed insurrection. Local revolts, led now by one
prince, now by another, broke out. On one occasion Mushegh Mamikonian
drove the Ostikan out of Dwin, but the Armenians paid dear for their
The Arabs marched against them 30,000 strong; Mushegh fell
success.
## p. 157 (#199) ############################################
Armenian Principalities
157
in battle, and the other princes fled into strongholds (780). Though in
786, when Hārūn ar-Rashid was Caliph, the country was for the time
subdued, alliances between Persian and Armenian princes twice ripened
into open rebellion in the first half of the ninth century. The Arabs
punished the second of these unsuccessful rebellions by wholesale pillage
and by torture, captivity, and death (c. 850).
As the long period of gloom, faintly starred by calamitous victories,
passed into the ninth century, the Arab oppression slowly lightened.
The Abbasid Empire was drawing to its fall. While the Arabs were
facing their own troubles, the Armenian nobility were founding princi-
palities. The Mamikonian family, it is true, died out in the middle of
the ninth century without founding a kingdom. Yet, because they had
no wide territories, they served Armenia disinterestedly, and though of
foreign origin could claim many of the national heroes of their adopted
country: Vasak, Mushegh, and Manuel, three generals of the Christian
Arsacidae; Vardan, who died for the faith in the religious wars; Vahan the
Wolf and Vahan Kamsarakan, who fought the Persians; David, Grigor,
and Mushegh, rebels against Arab misrule. The Arcruni and the Siwni,
who had also defended Armenia against the Arabs, founded independent
states in the tenth century. The Arcruni established their kingdom
(Vaspurakan) round the rocky citadel of Van, overlooking Lake Van
(908). Later, two different branches of their family founded the two
states of the Reshtuni and the Antsevatsi. The Siwni kingdom (Siunia)
arose in the latter half of the century (970). Many other principalities
were also formed, each claiming independence, the largest and most
important of them all being the kingdom of the Bagratuni.
Like the Mamikonians, the Bagratuni seem to have come from abroad.
According to Moses of Chorene, they were brought to Armenia from
Judaea by Hratchea, son of Paroïr, in B. c. 600. In the time of the
Parthians, King Valarsaces gave to Bagarat the hereditary honour of
placing the crown upon the head of the Armenian king, and for centuries
afterwards Bagarat's family gave leaders to the Armenians. Varaztirots
Bagratuni was the last Marzpan of the Persian domination, and the third
Curopalates of Armenia under the Byzantine Empire. Ashot (Ashod) Ba-
gratuni seized the government when the Arabs were trying to dislodge the
Greeks in the middle of the seventh century, and foreshadowed the later
policy of his family by his friendliness towards the Caliph, to whom he
paid tribute. He fell in battle, resisting the Greeks sent by Justinian II.
Smbat Bagratuni, made general of the forces by Justinian, favoured the
Greeks. Escaping from captivity in Damascus, it was he who had
defeated the Arabs with the help of Leo the Isaurian, and governed the
Armenians from the fortresses of Taïkh. In the middle of the eighth
century, another Ashot reverted to the policy of his namesake, and was
allowed by Marwān, the friendly Ostikan, to rule Armenia as “Prince of
Princes. ” In consequence he refused to rebel with other Armenian princes
וי
CH. v.
## p. 158 (#200) ############################################
158
The Bagratuni Dynasty
when the Arab tyranny was renewed, and for his loyalty was blinded by
his compatriots. Of his successors, some fought against the Arabs and
some sought their friendship; Bagratuni princes took a leading part on
both sides in the Armeno-Persian rebellions suppressed by the Arabs in
the first half of the ninth century.
The Bagratuni were also wealthy. Unlike the Mamikonians, they
owned vast territories, and founded a strong principality in the country of
Ararat. Their wealth, their lands, and their history made them the most
powerful of Armenian families and pointed out to them a future more
memorable than their past. Midway in the ninth century, the power of
the Bagratuni was inherited by Prince Ashot. The son of Smbat the
Confessor, he refounded the ancient kingdom of Armenia and gave it a
dynasty of two centuries' duration. Under the rule of these Bagratuni
kings Armenia passed through the most national phase of its history.
It was a conquered province before they rose to power, it became more
European and less Armenian after their line was extinct. Like Ashot
himself, his descendants tried at first to control the whole of Armenia,
but from 928 onwards they were obliged to content themselves with real
dominion in their hereditary lands and moral supremacy over the other
princes. This second and more peaceful period of their rule was the
very
summer of Armenian civilisation.
Ashot had come into a great inheritance. In addition to the provinces
of Ararat and Taïkh, he owned Gugarkh and Turuberan, large properties
in higher Armenia, as well as the towns of Bagaran, Mush, Kolb, and
Kars with all their territory. He could put into the field an army of forty
thousand men, and by giving his daughters in marriage to the princes of
the Arcruni and the Siwni he made friends of two possible rivals. For
many years his chief desire was to pacify Armenia and to restore the
wasted districts, and at the same time to earn the favour of the Caliphate.
In return, the Arabs called him “Prince of Princes” (859) and sent home
their Armenian prisoners. Two years later Ashot and his brother routed
an army, double the size of their own, led into Armenia by Shahap,
a Persian who was aiming at independence. Ashot's politic loyalty to
the Arabs finally moved the Caliph Mu'tamid to make him King of Ar-
menia (885–7), and at the same time he likewise received a crown and
royal gifts from the Byzantine Emperor, Basil the Macedonian. But
Armenia was not even yet entirely freed from Arab control. Tribute
was paid to Baghdad not immediately but through the neighbouring
Ostikan of Azarbā'ījān, and the coronation of Armenian kings waited
upon the approval of the Caliphs.
During his brief reign of five years, Ashot I revived many of the
customs of the old Arsacid kingdom which had perished four and a half
centuries earlier. The crown, it seems, was handed down according to the
principle of primogeniture. The kings, though nearly always active sol-
diers themselves, do not appear to have held the supreme military command,
## p. 159 (#201) ############################################
The Katholikos: A shot I: Smbat I
159
וי
which they usually entrusted to a “general of the forces,” an ancient
office once hereditary in the Mamikonian family, but in later times often
filled by a brother of the reigning king. In Ashot's time, for instance, his
brother Abas was generalissimo, and after Ashot's death was succeeded
by a younger brother of the new king.
The Katholikos was, after the king, the most important person in
Armenia. He had been the only national representative of the Armenians
during the period of anarchy when they had no king, and his office had
been respected by the Persians and used by the Arabs as a medium of
negotiation with the Armenian princes. Under the Bagratid kings, the
Katholikos nearly always worked with the monarchy, whose representatives
it was his privilege to anoint. He would press coronation upon a reluc-
tant king, would mediate between kings and their rebellious subjects,
would lay the king's needs before the Byzantine court, or would be en-
trusted with the keys of the Armenian capital in the king's absence.
Sometimes in supporting the monarchy he would oppose the people's will,
especially in a later period, when, long after the fall of the Bagratuni
dynasty, King and Katholikos worked together for religious union with
Rome against the bitter hostility of their subjects.
Ashot made good use of every interval of peace by restoring the
commerce, industry, and agriculture of his country, and by re-populating
hundreds of towns and villages. For the sake of peace he made alliances
with most of the neighbouring kings and princes, and after travelling
through his own estates and through Little Armenia, he went to Con-
stantinople to see the Emperor Leo the Philosopher, himself reputedly
an Armenian by descent. The two monarchs signed a political and com-
mercial treaty, and Ashot gave the Emperor an Armenian contingent to
help him against the Bulgarians.
Ashot died on the journey home, and his body was carried to Bagaran,
the old city of idols, and the seat of his new-formed power. But long
before his death, his country's peace, diligently cherished for a life-time,
had been broken by the Armenians themselves. One after another,
various localities, including Vanand and Gugarkh, had revolted, and al-
though Ashot had been able to restore order everywhere, such disturbances
promised ill for the future. The proud ambition of these Armenian
princes had breathed a fitful life into a conquered province only to sap
the vitality of an autonomous kingdom.
Under Smbat I (892–914) the lesser princes did more mischief than
under his father Ashot because they made common cause with the Arabs
of Azarbā'ījān, who hated Armenia. For more than twenty years Smbat
held his kingdom against the persistent attacks, now separate, now con-
nected, of the Ostikans of Azarbā'ījān and of the Armenian princes, and
for more than a generation he and his son looked perforce to the Greeks
as their only source of external help.
As soon as Smbat had defeated his uncle Abas, who had tried to seize
CH. VI.
## p. 160 (#202) ############################################
160
Armenia and Azarbā'ījān
the throne in the first year of his reign, he turned to face Afshin, Ostikan of
Azarbā'ījān. Afshin protested against the renewal of the Greco-Armenian
alliance and twice invaded Armenia. On the first occasion Smbat not only
forced the Arabs to retire by a display of his strength, but made conquests
at their expense. He seized Dwin, the capital of the Arab emirs, and sent
the Musulman chiefs captive to the Emperor Leo (894). A year later
Dwin was almost entirely destroyed by an earthquake. The second time
the Arabs invaded Armenia, Smbat, though taken by surprise, cut their
army to pieces at the foot of Mount Aragatz (or Alagöz). Afshin then
provoked rebellion among the Armenian princes, but without seriously
weakening Smbat. At last, through Armenian treachery, Smbat was de-
feated by Aḥmad, Ostikan of Mesopotamia, who had invaded the province
of Taron. Afshin took advantage of this reverse to invade Armenia for
the third time. Smbat retired to Taïkh, but Kars, the refuge of the
queen, capitulated to Afshin, who took Smbat's son as hostage and his
daughter as wife. Not long after, Afshin died, and the hostages were given
back (901). Smbat took this opportunity to obtain from the Caliph both
exemption from the authority of the Ostikan of Azarbā'ījān and also per-
mission to pay the annual tribute direct to Baghdad (902).
Afshin's feud with Armenia was renewed by his brother Yusuf. Urg-
ing that the separation of Armenia and Azarbā'ījān gave dangerous
liberty to the Armenians, he invaded the country. Smbat's troops fright-
ened him into retreat before he had struck a blow, but he soon obtained
help from some Armenian princes who were restive under heavy taxation.
Constrained to retire into the “Blue Fortress” with a handful of men,
Smbat assaulted the Muslim and Christian besiegers with great success,
and after withstanding a year's siege he capitulated only on receiving a
promise that the lives of the garrison should be spared (913). Yusuf
broke his promise. He tortured Smbat for a year, and finally put him to
death (914). The Armenian princes retired into fortresses, and Armenia
fell once more under the Arab yoke. For several years Yusuf sent fresh
troops into Armenia and organised the devastation of the country from
his headquarters at Dwin. No crops were sown, and a terrible famine
resulted. It is reported that parents even sold their children to escape
death and that some ate human flesh (918).
But the triumph of Yusuf was short. In the first year of the Arab
occupation, Smbat's son, Ashot II, surnamed Erkath, the Iron, had
already avenged his father's death by routing the invaders and recon-
quering the fortresses they held. In 915 the Armenian princes had issued
from their strongholds to declare him king. Several years later he visited
Byzantium, where the Katholikos had interested the court in the troubles
of Armenia, and returned home with a force of Greek soldiers. His
reign was one of incessant struggle against the Arabs and the Armenian
princes (915–928).
To thwart the new-born power of Armenia, Yūsuf crowned a rival
## p. 161 (#203) ############################################
Friendship between Armenia and the Arabs
161
king and provoked a fierce civil war, which was finally ended through the
mediation of John, the Katholikos. Many other internal revolts followed,
but Ashot suppressed them all, and Yusuf turned aside to attack the
peaceful kingdom of Van. Here, too, he was unsuccessful, but he appointed
a new Ostikan of Armenia. The purpose of this new Ostikan and of his suc-
cessor Bêshir was to capture the Armenian king and the Katholikos. But
Ashot retired to the island of Sevan, and built ten large boats. When
Bêshir marched against him with a strong army, he manned each boat
with seven skilled archers and sent them against theenemy. Every Armenian
arrow found its mark, the Arabs took to Alight, and were pursued with
slaughter as far as Dwin by Prince Georg Marzpetuni, Ashot's faithful
supporter. After this epic resistance, Ashot left Sevan in triumph, and
took the title “King of the Kings of Armenia” in token of his superiority
to the other Armenian princes. He died in 928.
Two reigns of perpetual warfare were followed by nearly a century of
comparative peace (928–1020). Ashot's successors were content with more
modest aims. At home they confined their real rule to their own patri-
mony and exercised only a moral sway over the other Armenian States.
Abroad they sought the favour of the Arabs, rather than that of the
Greeks. In this way alone was it possible to secure a measure of peace.
Ashot II was succeeded by his brother Abas (928-951), who concluded
a treaty with the Arabs of Dwin and exchanged Arab for Armenian
prisoners. He restored towns and villages and built churches.
But when
he built the cathedral of Kars, he brought not peace but a sword to his
countrymen. Ber, King of the Abasgians (Abkhaz), wanted the cathedral
to be consecrated according to Greek rites. On the banks of the Kūr,
Abas defeated him twice to cure him of error, and then blinded him for
having looked on the building with impious eyes.
Ashot III (952–977) adopted a conciliatory policy. When his rebel-
lious brother Mushel founded a kingdom in Vanand with Kars for its
capital (968), Ashot entered into friendly relations with him. He earned
the good will of Baghdad by defeating a rebel who had thrown Azarbā'ījān
and Mesopotamia into confusion. Side by side with a prince of the
Arcruni family he faced the Emperor John Tzimisces, who came eastward
to fight the Arabs and who seemed to threaten Armenia by pitching
his camp in Taron. Baffled by the bold front of Ashot's army, eighty
thousand strong, the Emperor demanded and received an Armenian con-
tingent, and then marched away from the frontier.
By such circumspect action, Ashot III gave peace to Armenia. He re-
organised the army and could put into the field a host of ninety thousand
men. Surpassing his predecessors in the building of pious foundations, he
bestowed great revenues on convents, churches, hospitals, and almshouses.
He made Ani his capital and laid the foundations of its greatness. He
was known as Olormadz, the Pitiful, for he never sat down to meals with-
out poor and impotent men about him.
C. MED. H. VOL. IV. CH. VI.
11
## p. 162 (#204) ############################################
162
The civilisation of Greater Armenia
Ashot's son Smbat II (977-990) was a lover of peace and a great
builder like his father. But he was forced into war with his rebellious
uncle Mushel, King of Vanand, and before his death he angered the Church
by marrying his niece.
Under his brother and successor, Gagik I (990–1020), the Armenians
enjoyed for a whole generation the strange experience of unbroken pros-
perity. Gagik was strong enough to prevent foreigners from attacking
him, and to gain the friendship of the other Armenian princes. Free
from war, he used all his time and energy to increase the moral and ma-
terial welfare of his people. He enriched the pious foundations that dated
from the time of his brother and father, and appropriated great revenues
to churches and ecclesiastics, taking part himself in religious ceremonies.
In his reign the civilisation of Armenia reached its height. Flourishing
in the unaccustomed air of peace, convents and schools were centres of
light and learning; commercial towns such as Ani, Bitlis, Ardzen, and
Nakhijevan, became wealthy marts for the merchandise of Persia, Arabia,
and the Indies. Agriculture shared in the general prosperity. Goldsmiths,
much influenced by Persian models, were hard at work, and coppersmiths
made the plentiful copper of the country into objects of every description.
Enamelling flourished in neighbouring Georgia, but no Armenian enamel
survives to tell whether the art was practised in Armenia itself.
Armenian culture was pre-eminently ecclesiastical. Its literature did
include chronicles and secular poems, but was overwhelmingly religious
as a whole. Armenian manuscripts, famous alike for their antiquity,
their beauty, and their importance in the history of writing, are nearly
all ecclesiastical. Most interesting of all in many ways (especially for the
comparison of texts and variant readings) are the numerous copies of the
Gospels. The Moscow manuscript (887) is the earliest Armenian manu-
script actually dated, and two very beautiful Gospels of a later date are
those of Queen Melkê and of Trebizond. A collection of theological and
other texts executed between 971 and 981 is their earliest manuscript
written on paper. Other important writings were dogmatic works, com-
mentaries, and sharakans or sacred songs composed in honour of church
festivals. Armenian art, again, was mainly ecclesiastical, and survives, on
the one hand in the illuminations and miniatures which adorn the sacred
texts, and, on the other, in the ruined churches and convents which still
cover the face of the country. Architecture was military as well as eccle-
siastical, but it is hard not to believe that the people of Ani were prouder
of their galaxy of churches than they were of their fortress, their walls,
and their towers.
In the tenth century, especially after a branch of the Bagratuni had
founded an independent State in Vanand (968), the intellectual focus of
Armenia seems to have been Kars, with its crowd of young Armenian
students who came there to study philosophy, belles-lettres, and theology.
But the true centre and most splendid proof of Armenian civilisation was
## p. 163 (#205) ############################################
Civil war between John-Smbat and his brother
163
Ani, city of forty keys and a thousand and one churches. In the eighth
century no more than a village, it slowly grew larger and more populous.
Ashot I and Ashot III were crowned at Ani, and there Ashot III established
the throne of the Bagratuni dynasty. He defended the city with a fortress,
and his queen enriched it with two fine convents, but the most splendid
buildings were added by Smbat II, who also fortified Ani on the north
with a double line of walls and towers and a great ditch of stone. The
citadel was defended on the east and south by the river Akhurian, and
on the west by the Valley of Flowers. Among the magnificent palaces and
temples, richly adorned with mosaics and inscriptions, stood the cathedral,
masterpiece of the famous architect Trdat (Tiridates), built on Persian
and Byzantine lines.
This mixture of architectural styles is typical of the national art of
Armenia, which betrays a subtle mingling of Persian, Arab, and Byzantine
influences. The churches of Sevan, of Digor, of Keghard near Erivan,
even the Armenian church of Paris in the Rue Jean-Goujon', still
symbolise the desperate battle the Armenians had to fight against the
foreigner, and still suggest that the only way of maintaining the unequal
struggle was to turn the encroaching elements to the service of the
Armenian Church, dearest and most inviolable stronghold of Armenian
nationality.
Under Gagik I that nationality seemed safe. His reign proved
Armenia's capacity for quick recovery, and promised the country a fair
future if peace could be kept. 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.
was in touch with the Crusaders, Armenia never held more than a doubt-
ful place in the state-system of medieval Europe. Sooner than sink their
identity in Greek or Roman Church, the Armenians more than once
chose the friendship of infidels. On the other hand, whether as neigh-
bours or as enemies, as allies or as conquerors, the races of the East could
never turn the Armenians from their faith. When Armenia ceased to
exist as a State, its people kept alive their nationality in their Church. As
with the Jews, their ecclesiastical obstinacy was at once their danger and
their strength: it left them friendless, but it enabled them to survive
political extinction.
Isolated by religion, Armenia was also perpetually divided against
itself by its rival princes. Like the Church, the numerous princely
houses both preserved and weakened their country. They prevented
the foundation of a unified national State. But a large Power stretching
perhaps from Cappadocia to the Caspian borders, and disabled by ill-
defined frontiers, could never have outfaced the hostility of Europe and
CH. VI.
## p. 154 (#196) ############################################
154
Periods of Armenian history
Asia. A collection of small principalities, grouped round rocky strong-
holds difficult of access, had always, even after wholesale conquest, a
latent faculty of recovery in the energy of its powerful families. The
Arabs could have destroyed a single royal line, but, slaughter as they
might, Armenia was never leaderless: they could not exterminate its
nobility. The political history of Armenia, especially during the first
half of the Middle Ages, is a history of great families. And this helps to
explain the puzzling movement of Armenian boundaries—a movement
due not only to pressure from outside, but also to the short-lived uprising,
first of one prince, then of another, amidst the ruin, widespread and
repeated, of his country.
During the triumph of Rome and for many generations of Rome's
decline Armenia was ruled by a national dynasty related to the Arsacidae,
kings of Parthia (B. c. 149-A. D. 428). The country had been for many
years a victim to the wars and diplomacy of Persia and Rome when in
A. D. 386–7 it was partitioned by Sapor III and the Emperor Theodosius.
From 387 to 428 the Arsacid kings of Armenia were vassals of Persia,
while the westernmost part of their kingdom was incorporated in the
Roman Empire and ruled by a count.
The history of the thousand years that followed (428-1473) is sketched
in this chapter. It may be divided into five distinct periods. First came
long years of anarchy, during which Armenia had no independent
existence but was the prey of Persians, Greeks, and Arabs (428-885).
Four and a half centuries of foreign domination were then succeeded by
nearly two centuries of autonomy. During this second period Armenia
was ruled from Transcaucasia by the national dynasty of the Bagratuni.
After 1046, when the Bagratid kingdom was conquered by the Greeks,
who were soon dispossessed by the Turks, Greater Armenia never re-
covered its political life.
Meanwhile the third period of Armenia's medieval history had opened
in Asia Minor, where a new Armenian State was founded in Cilicia by
Prince Ruben, a kinsman of the Bagratuni. From 1080–1340 Rubenian
and Hethumian princes ruled Armeno-Cilicia, first as lords or barons
(1080-1198), then as kings (1198–1342). During this period the Ar-
menians engaged in a successful struggle with the Greeks, and in a pro-
longed and losing contest with the Seljūqs and Mamlūks. Throughout
these
years the relations between the Armenian rulers and the Latin king-
doms of Syria were so close that up to a point the history of Armeno-Cilicia
may be considered merely as an episode in the history of the Crusades.
This view is strengthened by the events of the fourth period (1342–1373),
during which Cilicia was ruled by the crusading family of the Lusignans.
When the Lusignan dynasty was overthrown by the Mamlūks in 1375,
the Armenians lost their political existence once more. In the fifth and
last period of their medieval history (1375–1473), they suffered the
## p. 155 (#197) ############################################
Persians and Greeks in Armenia
155
horrors of a Tartar invasion under Tamerlane and finally passed under
the yoke of the Ottoman Turks.
When Ardashes, the last Arsacid vassal-king, was deposed in 428,
Armenia was governed directly by the Persians, who already partly con-
trolled the country. No strict chronology has yet been fixed for the cen-
turies of anarchy which ensued (428-885), but it appears that Persian rule
lasted for about two centuries (428-633). Byzantine rule followed,
spreading eastward from Roman Armenia, and after two generations
(633–693) the Arabs replaced the Greeks and held the Armenians in
subjection until 862.
In this long period of foreign rule, the Armenians invariably found
a change of masters a change for the worse. The Persians ruled the
country though a succession of Marzpans, or military commanders of the
frontiers, who also had to keep order and to collect revenue. With a strong
guard under their own command, they did not destroy the old national
militia nor take away the privileges of the nobility, and at first they
allowed full liberty to the Katholikos and his bishops. As long as the
Persians governed with such tolerance, they might fairly hope to fuse the
Armenian nation with their own. But a change of religious policy under
Yezdegerd II and Piroz roused the Armenians to defend their faith in a
series of religious wars lasting until the end of the sixth century, during
which Vardan with his 1036 companions perished for the Christian faith
in the terrible battle of Avaraïr (454). But, whether defeated or victorious,
the Armenians never exchanged their Christianity for Zoroastrianism,
On the whole, the Marzpans ruled Armenia as well as they could. In
spite of the religious persecution and of a dispute about the Council of
Chalcedon between the Armenians and their fellow-Christians in Georgia,
the Armenian Church more than held its ground, and ruined churches and
monasteries were restored or rebuilt towards the opening of the seventh
century. Of the later Marzpans some bore Armenian names. The last
of them belonged to the Bagratuni family which was destined to sustain
the national existence of Armenia for many generations against untold
odds. But this gleam of hope was extinguished by the fall of the Persian
Empire before the Arabs. For when they conquered Persia, Armenia
turned to Byzantium, and was ruled for sixty years by officials who
received the rank of Curopalates and were appointed by the Emperor
(633-693). The Curopalates, it appears, was entrusted with the civil
administration of the country, while the military command was held by
an Armenian General of the Forces.
Though the Curopalates, too, seems to have been always Armenian,
the despotic yoke of the Greeks was even harder to bear than the burden
of religious wars imposed by the Persians. If the Persians had tried
to make the Armenians worship the Sacred Fire, the Greeks were equally
bent on forcing them to renounce the Eutychian heresy. As usual, the
CH. VI.
## p. 156 (#198) ############################################
156
The Arab Conquest
Armenians refused to yield. The Emperor Constantine came himself
to Armenia in 647, but his visit did nothing to strengthen Byzantine
authority. The advance of the Arabs, who had begun to invade Armenia
ten years earlier under 'Abd-ar-Raḥīm, made stable government im-
possible, for, sooner than merge themselves in the Greek Church, the
Armenians sought Muslim protection. But the Arabs exacted so heavy
a tribute that Armenia turned again to the Eastern Empire. As a result,
the Armenians suffered equally from Greeks and Arabs. When they
paid tribute to the Arabs, the Greeks invaded and devastated their land.
When they turned to the Greeks, the Arabs punished their success and
failure alike by invasion and rapine. Finally, at the close of the seventh
century, the Armenian people submitted absolutely to the Caliphate.
The Curopalates had fled, the General of the Forces and the Patriarch
(Katholikos) Sahak IV were prisoners in Damascus, and some of the
Armenian princes had been tortured and put to death.
A period of unqualified tyranny followed. The Arabs intended to
rivet the chains of abject submission upon Armenia, and to extort from
its helplessness the greatest possible amount of revenue. Ostikans, or
governors, foreigners almost without exception, ruled the country for
Baghdad. These officials commanded an army, and were supposed to
collect the taxes and to keep the people submissive. They loaded Armenia
with heavy imposts, and tried to destroy the princely families by im-
prisoning and killing their men and confiscating their possessions. Under
such treatment the Armenians were occasionally cowed but usually
rebellious. Their national existence, manifest in rebellion, was upheld by
the princes. First one, then another, revolted against the Muslims, made
overtures to the enemies of Baghdad, and aspired to re-found the kingdom
of Armenia.
Shortly after the Arab conquest, the Armenians turned once more to
their old masters, the Greeks. With the help of Leo the Isaurian, Smbat
(Sempad) Bagratuni defeated the Arabs, and was commissioned to rule
Armenia by the Emperor. But after a severe struggle the Muslims re-
gained their dominion, and sent the Arab commander Qāsim to punish
the Armenians (704). He carried out his task with oriental ferocity.
He set fire to the church of Nakhijevan, into which he had driven the
princes and nobles, and then pillaged the country and sent many of the
people into captivity.
These savage reprisals were typical of Arab misrule for the next forty
years, and after a peaceful interval during which a friendly Ostikan,
Marwān, entrusted the government of Armenia to Ashot Bagratuni, the
reign of terror started afresh (758). But, in defiance of extortion and
cruelty, insurrection followed insurrection. Local revolts, led now by one
prince, now by another, broke out. On one occasion Mushegh Mamikonian
drove the Ostikan out of Dwin, but the Armenians paid dear for their
The Arabs marched against them 30,000 strong; Mushegh fell
success.
## p. 157 (#199) ############################################
Armenian Principalities
157
in battle, and the other princes fled into strongholds (780). Though in
786, when Hārūn ar-Rashid was Caliph, the country was for the time
subdued, alliances between Persian and Armenian princes twice ripened
into open rebellion in the first half of the ninth century. The Arabs
punished the second of these unsuccessful rebellions by wholesale pillage
and by torture, captivity, and death (c. 850).
As the long period of gloom, faintly starred by calamitous victories,
passed into the ninth century, the Arab oppression slowly lightened.
The Abbasid Empire was drawing to its fall. While the Arabs were
facing their own troubles, the Armenian nobility were founding princi-
palities. The Mamikonian family, it is true, died out in the middle of
the ninth century without founding a kingdom. Yet, because they had
no wide territories, they served Armenia disinterestedly, and though of
foreign origin could claim many of the national heroes of their adopted
country: Vasak, Mushegh, and Manuel, three generals of the Christian
Arsacidae; Vardan, who died for the faith in the religious wars; Vahan the
Wolf and Vahan Kamsarakan, who fought the Persians; David, Grigor,
and Mushegh, rebels against Arab misrule. The Arcruni and the Siwni,
who had also defended Armenia against the Arabs, founded independent
states in the tenth century. The Arcruni established their kingdom
(Vaspurakan) round the rocky citadel of Van, overlooking Lake Van
(908). Later, two different branches of their family founded the two
states of the Reshtuni and the Antsevatsi. The Siwni kingdom (Siunia)
arose in the latter half of the century (970). Many other principalities
were also formed, each claiming independence, the largest and most
important of them all being the kingdom of the Bagratuni.
Like the Mamikonians, the Bagratuni seem to have come from abroad.
According to Moses of Chorene, they were brought to Armenia from
Judaea by Hratchea, son of Paroïr, in B. c. 600. In the time of the
Parthians, King Valarsaces gave to Bagarat the hereditary honour of
placing the crown upon the head of the Armenian king, and for centuries
afterwards Bagarat's family gave leaders to the Armenians. Varaztirots
Bagratuni was the last Marzpan of the Persian domination, and the third
Curopalates of Armenia under the Byzantine Empire. Ashot (Ashod) Ba-
gratuni seized the government when the Arabs were trying to dislodge the
Greeks in the middle of the seventh century, and foreshadowed the later
policy of his family by his friendliness towards the Caliph, to whom he
paid tribute. He fell in battle, resisting the Greeks sent by Justinian II.
Smbat Bagratuni, made general of the forces by Justinian, favoured the
Greeks. Escaping from captivity in Damascus, it was he who had
defeated the Arabs with the help of Leo the Isaurian, and governed the
Armenians from the fortresses of Taïkh. In the middle of the eighth
century, another Ashot reverted to the policy of his namesake, and was
allowed by Marwān, the friendly Ostikan, to rule Armenia as “Prince of
Princes. ” In consequence he refused to rebel with other Armenian princes
וי
CH. v.
## p. 158 (#200) ############################################
158
The Bagratuni Dynasty
when the Arab tyranny was renewed, and for his loyalty was blinded by
his compatriots. Of his successors, some fought against the Arabs and
some sought their friendship; Bagratuni princes took a leading part on
both sides in the Armeno-Persian rebellions suppressed by the Arabs in
the first half of the ninth century.
The Bagratuni were also wealthy. Unlike the Mamikonians, they
owned vast territories, and founded a strong principality in the country of
Ararat. Their wealth, their lands, and their history made them the most
powerful of Armenian families and pointed out to them a future more
memorable than their past. Midway in the ninth century, the power of
the Bagratuni was inherited by Prince Ashot. The son of Smbat the
Confessor, he refounded the ancient kingdom of Armenia and gave it a
dynasty of two centuries' duration. Under the rule of these Bagratuni
kings Armenia passed through the most national phase of its history.
It was a conquered province before they rose to power, it became more
European and less Armenian after their line was extinct. Like Ashot
himself, his descendants tried at first to control the whole of Armenia,
but from 928 onwards they were obliged to content themselves with real
dominion in their hereditary lands and moral supremacy over the other
princes. This second and more peaceful period of their rule was the
very
summer of Armenian civilisation.
Ashot had come into a great inheritance. In addition to the provinces
of Ararat and Taïkh, he owned Gugarkh and Turuberan, large properties
in higher Armenia, as well as the towns of Bagaran, Mush, Kolb, and
Kars with all their territory. He could put into the field an army of forty
thousand men, and by giving his daughters in marriage to the princes of
the Arcruni and the Siwni he made friends of two possible rivals. For
many years his chief desire was to pacify Armenia and to restore the
wasted districts, and at the same time to earn the favour of the Caliphate.
In return, the Arabs called him “Prince of Princes” (859) and sent home
their Armenian prisoners. Two years later Ashot and his brother routed
an army, double the size of their own, led into Armenia by Shahap,
a Persian who was aiming at independence. Ashot's politic loyalty to
the Arabs finally moved the Caliph Mu'tamid to make him King of Ar-
menia (885–7), and at the same time he likewise received a crown and
royal gifts from the Byzantine Emperor, Basil the Macedonian. But
Armenia was not even yet entirely freed from Arab control. Tribute
was paid to Baghdad not immediately but through the neighbouring
Ostikan of Azarbā'ījān, and the coronation of Armenian kings waited
upon the approval of the Caliphs.
During his brief reign of five years, Ashot I revived many of the
customs of the old Arsacid kingdom which had perished four and a half
centuries earlier. The crown, it seems, was handed down according to the
principle of primogeniture. The kings, though nearly always active sol-
diers themselves, do not appear to have held the supreme military command,
## p. 159 (#201) ############################################
The Katholikos: A shot I: Smbat I
159
וי
which they usually entrusted to a “general of the forces,” an ancient
office once hereditary in the Mamikonian family, but in later times often
filled by a brother of the reigning king. In Ashot's time, for instance, his
brother Abas was generalissimo, and after Ashot's death was succeeded
by a younger brother of the new king.
The Katholikos was, after the king, the most important person in
Armenia. He had been the only national representative of the Armenians
during the period of anarchy when they had no king, and his office had
been respected by the Persians and used by the Arabs as a medium of
negotiation with the Armenian princes. Under the Bagratid kings, the
Katholikos nearly always worked with the monarchy, whose representatives
it was his privilege to anoint. He would press coronation upon a reluc-
tant king, would mediate between kings and their rebellious subjects,
would lay the king's needs before the Byzantine court, or would be en-
trusted with the keys of the Armenian capital in the king's absence.
Sometimes in supporting the monarchy he would oppose the people's will,
especially in a later period, when, long after the fall of the Bagratuni
dynasty, King and Katholikos worked together for religious union with
Rome against the bitter hostility of their subjects.
Ashot made good use of every interval of peace by restoring the
commerce, industry, and agriculture of his country, and by re-populating
hundreds of towns and villages. For the sake of peace he made alliances
with most of the neighbouring kings and princes, and after travelling
through his own estates and through Little Armenia, he went to Con-
stantinople to see the Emperor Leo the Philosopher, himself reputedly
an Armenian by descent. The two monarchs signed a political and com-
mercial treaty, and Ashot gave the Emperor an Armenian contingent to
help him against the Bulgarians.
Ashot died on the journey home, and his body was carried to Bagaran,
the old city of idols, and the seat of his new-formed power. But long
before his death, his country's peace, diligently cherished for a life-time,
had been broken by the Armenians themselves. One after another,
various localities, including Vanand and Gugarkh, had revolted, and al-
though Ashot had been able to restore order everywhere, such disturbances
promised ill for the future. The proud ambition of these Armenian
princes had breathed a fitful life into a conquered province only to sap
the vitality of an autonomous kingdom.
Under Smbat I (892–914) the lesser princes did more mischief than
under his father Ashot because they made common cause with the Arabs
of Azarbā'ījān, who hated Armenia. For more than twenty years Smbat
held his kingdom against the persistent attacks, now separate, now con-
nected, of the Ostikans of Azarbā'ījān and of the Armenian princes, and
for more than a generation he and his son looked perforce to the Greeks
as their only source of external help.
As soon as Smbat had defeated his uncle Abas, who had tried to seize
CH. VI.
## p. 160 (#202) ############################################
160
Armenia and Azarbā'ījān
the throne in the first year of his reign, he turned to face Afshin, Ostikan of
Azarbā'ījān. Afshin protested against the renewal of the Greco-Armenian
alliance and twice invaded Armenia. On the first occasion Smbat not only
forced the Arabs to retire by a display of his strength, but made conquests
at their expense. He seized Dwin, the capital of the Arab emirs, and sent
the Musulman chiefs captive to the Emperor Leo (894). A year later
Dwin was almost entirely destroyed by an earthquake. The second time
the Arabs invaded Armenia, Smbat, though taken by surprise, cut their
army to pieces at the foot of Mount Aragatz (or Alagöz). Afshin then
provoked rebellion among the Armenian princes, but without seriously
weakening Smbat. At last, through Armenian treachery, Smbat was de-
feated by Aḥmad, Ostikan of Mesopotamia, who had invaded the province
of Taron. Afshin took advantage of this reverse to invade Armenia for
the third time. Smbat retired to Taïkh, but Kars, the refuge of the
queen, capitulated to Afshin, who took Smbat's son as hostage and his
daughter as wife. Not long after, Afshin died, and the hostages were given
back (901). Smbat took this opportunity to obtain from the Caliph both
exemption from the authority of the Ostikan of Azarbā'ījān and also per-
mission to pay the annual tribute direct to Baghdad (902).
Afshin's feud with Armenia was renewed by his brother Yusuf. Urg-
ing that the separation of Armenia and Azarbā'ījān gave dangerous
liberty to the Armenians, he invaded the country. Smbat's troops fright-
ened him into retreat before he had struck a blow, but he soon obtained
help from some Armenian princes who were restive under heavy taxation.
Constrained to retire into the “Blue Fortress” with a handful of men,
Smbat assaulted the Muslim and Christian besiegers with great success,
and after withstanding a year's siege he capitulated only on receiving a
promise that the lives of the garrison should be spared (913). Yusuf
broke his promise. He tortured Smbat for a year, and finally put him to
death (914). The Armenian princes retired into fortresses, and Armenia
fell once more under the Arab yoke. For several years Yusuf sent fresh
troops into Armenia and organised the devastation of the country from
his headquarters at Dwin. No crops were sown, and a terrible famine
resulted. It is reported that parents even sold their children to escape
death and that some ate human flesh (918).
But the triumph of Yusuf was short. In the first year of the Arab
occupation, Smbat's son, Ashot II, surnamed Erkath, the Iron, had
already avenged his father's death by routing the invaders and recon-
quering the fortresses they held. In 915 the Armenian princes had issued
from their strongholds to declare him king. Several years later he visited
Byzantium, where the Katholikos had interested the court in the troubles
of Armenia, and returned home with a force of Greek soldiers. His
reign was one of incessant struggle against the Arabs and the Armenian
princes (915–928).
To thwart the new-born power of Armenia, Yūsuf crowned a rival
## p. 161 (#203) ############################################
Friendship between Armenia and the Arabs
161
king and provoked a fierce civil war, which was finally ended through the
mediation of John, the Katholikos. Many other internal revolts followed,
but Ashot suppressed them all, and Yusuf turned aside to attack the
peaceful kingdom of Van. Here, too, he was unsuccessful, but he appointed
a new Ostikan of Armenia. The purpose of this new Ostikan and of his suc-
cessor Bêshir was to capture the Armenian king and the Katholikos. But
Ashot retired to the island of Sevan, and built ten large boats. When
Bêshir marched against him with a strong army, he manned each boat
with seven skilled archers and sent them against theenemy. Every Armenian
arrow found its mark, the Arabs took to Alight, and were pursued with
slaughter as far as Dwin by Prince Georg Marzpetuni, Ashot's faithful
supporter. After this epic resistance, Ashot left Sevan in triumph, and
took the title “King of the Kings of Armenia” in token of his superiority
to the other Armenian princes. He died in 928.
Two reigns of perpetual warfare were followed by nearly a century of
comparative peace (928–1020). Ashot's successors were content with more
modest aims. At home they confined their real rule to their own patri-
mony and exercised only a moral sway over the other Armenian States.
Abroad they sought the favour of the Arabs, rather than that of the
Greeks. In this way alone was it possible to secure a measure of peace.
Ashot II was succeeded by his brother Abas (928-951), who concluded
a treaty with the Arabs of Dwin and exchanged Arab for Armenian
prisoners. He restored towns and villages and built churches.
But when
he built the cathedral of Kars, he brought not peace but a sword to his
countrymen. Ber, King of the Abasgians (Abkhaz), wanted the cathedral
to be consecrated according to Greek rites. On the banks of the Kūr,
Abas defeated him twice to cure him of error, and then blinded him for
having looked on the building with impious eyes.
Ashot III (952–977) adopted a conciliatory policy. When his rebel-
lious brother Mushel founded a kingdom in Vanand with Kars for its
capital (968), Ashot entered into friendly relations with him. He earned
the good will of Baghdad by defeating a rebel who had thrown Azarbā'ījān
and Mesopotamia into confusion. Side by side with a prince of the
Arcruni family he faced the Emperor John Tzimisces, who came eastward
to fight the Arabs and who seemed to threaten Armenia by pitching
his camp in Taron. Baffled by the bold front of Ashot's army, eighty
thousand strong, the Emperor demanded and received an Armenian con-
tingent, and then marched away from the frontier.
By such circumspect action, Ashot III gave peace to Armenia. He re-
organised the army and could put into the field a host of ninety thousand
men. Surpassing his predecessors in the building of pious foundations, he
bestowed great revenues on convents, churches, hospitals, and almshouses.
He made Ani his capital and laid the foundations of its greatness. He
was known as Olormadz, the Pitiful, for he never sat down to meals with-
out poor and impotent men about him.
C. MED. H. VOL. IV. CH. VI.
11
## p. 162 (#204) ############################################
162
The civilisation of Greater Armenia
Ashot's son Smbat II (977-990) was a lover of peace and a great
builder like his father. But he was forced into war with his rebellious
uncle Mushel, King of Vanand, and before his death he angered the Church
by marrying his niece.
Under his brother and successor, Gagik I (990–1020), the Armenians
enjoyed for a whole generation the strange experience of unbroken pros-
perity. Gagik was strong enough to prevent foreigners from attacking
him, and to gain the friendship of the other Armenian princes. Free
from war, he used all his time and energy to increase the moral and ma-
terial welfare of his people. He enriched the pious foundations that dated
from the time of his brother and father, and appropriated great revenues
to churches and ecclesiastics, taking part himself in religious ceremonies.
In his reign the civilisation of Armenia reached its height. Flourishing
in the unaccustomed air of peace, convents and schools were centres of
light and learning; commercial towns such as Ani, Bitlis, Ardzen, and
Nakhijevan, became wealthy marts for the merchandise of Persia, Arabia,
and the Indies. Agriculture shared in the general prosperity. Goldsmiths,
much influenced by Persian models, were hard at work, and coppersmiths
made the plentiful copper of the country into objects of every description.
Enamelling flourished in neighbouring Georgia, but no Armenian enamel
survives to tell whether the art was practised in Armenia itself.
Armenian culture was pre-eminently ecclesiastical. Its literature did
include chronicles and secular poems, but was overwhelmingly religious
as a whole. Armenian manuscripts, famous alike for their antiquity,
their beauty, and their importance in the history of writing, are nearly
all ecclesiastical. Most interesting of all in many ways (especially for the
comparison of texts and variant readings) are the numerous copies of the
Gospels. The Moscow manuscript (887) is the earliest Armenian manu-
script actually dated, and two very beautiful Gospels of a later date are
those of Queen Melkê and of Trebizond. A collection of theological and
other texts executed between 971 and 981 is their earliest manuscript
written on paper. Other important writings were dogmatic works, com-
mentaries, and sharakans or sacred songs composed in honour of church
festivals. Armenian art, again, was mainly ecclesiastical, and survives, on
the one hand in the illuminations and miniatures which adorn the sacred
texts, and, on the other, in the ruined churches and convents which still
cover the face of the country. Architecture was military as well as eccle-
siastical, but it is hard not to believe that the people of Ani were prouder
of their galaxy of churches than they were of their fortress, their walls,
and their towers.
In the tenth century, especially after a branch of the Bagratuni had
founded an independent State in Vanand (968), the intellectual focus of
Armenia seems to have been Kars, with its crowd of young Armenian
students who came there to study philosophy, belles-lettres, and theology.
But the true centre and most splendid proof of Armenian civilisation was
## p. 163 (#205) ############################################
Civil war between John-Smbat and his brother
163
Ani, city of forty keys and a thousand and one churches. In the eighth
century no more than a village, it slowly grew larger and more populous.
Ashot I and Ashot III were crowned at Ani, and there Ashot III established
the throne of the Bagratuni dynasty. He defended the city with a fortress,
and his queen enriched it with two fine convents, but the most splendid
buildings were added by Smbat II, who also fortified Ani on the north
with a double line of walls and towers and a great ditch of stone. The
citadel was defended on the east and south by the river Akhurian, and
on the west by the Valley of Flowers. Among the magnificent palaces and
temples, richly adorned with mosaics and inscriptions, stood the cathedral,
masterpiece of the famous architect Trdat (Tiridates), built on Persian
and Byzantine lines.
This mixture of architectural styles is typical of the national art of
Armenia, which betrays a subtle mingling of Persian, Arab, and Byzantine
influences. The churches of Sevan, of Digor, of Keghard near Erivan,
even the Armenian church of Paris in the Rue Jean-Goujon', still
symbolise the desperate battle the Armenians had to fight against the
foreigner, and still suggest that the only way of maintaining the unequal
struggle was to turn the encroaching elements to the service of the
Armenian Church, dearest and most inviolable stronghold of Armenian
nationality.
Under Gagik I that nationality seemed safe. His reign proved
Armenia's capacity for quick recovery, and promised the country a fair
future if peace could be kept. 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.
