ARMENIA. 



ARMENIA. 



the fifth king in moomion from Paroir, the family of one of the 

 exiled Jewish nobles, Shambat, cune into Armenia. Prom him 

 it i Mid, the great family of the Bagratians, which 



. , 



mbeequenUy, about the middle of the 9th century of the Christian 

 en, earn* to the throne of Armenia. 



The next king but one after Halkak waa Dikrnn, or Tigranes I., 

 who assisted Cyrus in his rebellion against Astyagea and the Medea. 

 To him Armenian authors ascribe the foundation of the city of 

 Tigranocerta ; but Plutarch and Strabo assign it to Tigranes, the 

 contemporary of Mithridatos. He was followed by his youngest aon 

 Vohagn, who became celebrated by many deeds of valour in his wan 

 with the Medea ; the Armenians and Georgians composed and sung 

 poems in his praise. 



A corps of Armenians formed part of the Persian army in the 

 expedition of Xerxes against Greece. They and a corps of Phrygians 

 wore the same kind of armour, and were both commanded by 

 Artochmes, a son-in-law of Darius. Herodotus in mentioning these 

 facU (rii. 73) expresses an opinion that the Armenians were a 

 colony of the Phrygians; Strabo (xi. c. 14., t. ii. p. 468, ed. Tauch.) 

 seems inclined to consider them as of Theesalian origin, but his 

 arguments are not very convincing. 



About the middle of the 4th century before our era Vahey waa 

 upon the throne of the Haigs. He assisted Darius in his war with 

 the Macedonians, but fell in battle in the year B.C. 328. Armenia 

 became a Macedonian province, and was ruled by governors, the first 

 of whom, Mithrines, a Persian, was appointed by Alexander three 

 years after the death of Vahey. Already in the year 317 however 

 the Armenian chief Ardwand or Brwand (Ardoates) headed a 

 revolution against the reigning governor Neoptolemus, threw off the 

 Macedonian yoke, and maintained himself for 38 yearn as an inde- 

 pendent sovereign. After his death the Armenians were obliged to 

 submit for a time to the supremacy of the Seleucidsc, until tw-> 

 Armenian nobles, Artaxias and Zariadras, availed themselves of the 

 moment when Antiochus the Great had suffered a defeat from the 

 Romans (ac. 190) to declare their country free from its allegiance to 

 rian kings. Armenia was at this epoch divided into two 

 kingdoms, that of Armenia Minor on the western, and that of Armenia 

 Major on the eastern side of the Euphrates. In Armenia Minor the 

 descendants of Zariadras continued to rule till the fall of Mithridates ; 

 thenceforward the country became attached to one or the other of the 

 neighbouring states, and in the reign of the emperor Vespasian was 

 made a Roman province ; subsequently its limits were extended so as 

 to embrace Melitene, Aravene, and part of Cataonia ; and under the 

 Byzantine emperors we find it divided into Armenia Prima and 

 Secunda, the former governed by a consul, the latter by a dus 



In Armenia Major the family of Artaxias (the Armenian Arsacidje) 

 maintained iUelf till the year B.C. 5, and gave eight, or according to 

 other* ten kings to the Armenian throne. The most important of 

 these is Tigranes I. (B.C. 95-60) the son-in-law and ally of Mithridates. 

 He rendered himself master of Armenia Minor, Cappadocin, and 

 Syria, but lost all these conquests after the defeat of Mithridates. 

 Lucullus invaded Armenia, and defeated near Tigranocerta the mixed 

 and numerous army of Tigranes. (Plut. LuculL 25. ic.) The peace 

 concluded in the year B.C. 63 only left him Armenia. His son and 

 nccea*or Artavamles was perfidiously seized by Marcus An' 

 and delivered as a prisoner into the hands of Cleopatra the queen of 

 Egypt (ac. 84). After this time Armenia became an object of 

 unceasing contention between the Romans and the Parthians, who 

 alternately installed and dethroned it* rulers. 



In A.D. 282 Armenia was conquered by Ardeshir, the firnt of the 

 Saawnide kings of Persia. The country remained subject to this 

 dynasty till Dertad, or Tiridates, the aon of Khosru and the only 

 surrivor of the Areacide family, supported by a Roman army, made 

 it free again. About A.K 276 Tiridatoi and many of the Armenian 

 nobility were converted to Christianity by St Qregory, whom l'..pe 

 Sylvester I. in A.t>. 819 confirmed as pontiff of Armenia. Tims 

 Armenia was the first country in whirl -y was exUMi-K. 1 



as the national religion. The conversion <>f ConsUntine tn the 

 Christian faith about the aanip time caused fririxll to exist 



between the Oreek empire and Armenia, but exposed Hi" I 

 to the increased hatred of the heathen government of Persia. New 

 conflict* and disturbance* ensued, till U.l>. 887) Theodoalus the Great 

 entered into a compact with the !Vr>imi king Saporen, according to 

 , which the extern part of Armenia wai to belong to Persia, and the 

 western part to the Roman empire. Hapores with a view to conciliate 

 the minds of the Armenian nobles, many of whom were quitting the 



;. in rlj.gu.t, appointed Khosru, on offspring of the A 

 family, as a tributary king over Persian Armenia. In 428 howerer 

 the Fenian king Behram V. deponed ArtACoi or Arlashir, the last of 



Lributory Anacide rulers, and with the consent of the An 



pointed a Persian officer to govern the country. All tin 1 

 , i P** 1 " 1 <*""* were now directed towards the suppi 

 rhrwtwnity in Armenia and the introduction of the doctrine of 

 Zoroaster, as the difference of religion appeared to be the chief 

 obstacle to the lasting fealty of the p^vrncTon these grounds the 

 Angolan Christan became subject to constant vexatious and even 



I persecution* from their Persian rulers. 



Even after the fall of the Sasnanide dynasty In 632 Armenia did 

 not enjoy tranquillity, as it* provinces soon became the scene of 

 conflic 1 v,.ek empire and the Mohammedans. In 855, 



during the caliphat of Motawakkel, an Arabian army un<i 

 command <if Hugs conquered Armenia; many of its principal noblen 

 were brought to Baghdad, where the greater numl>er of them were 

 forced to become convert* to the Mohammedan religion ; only Sempad, 

 the Bagrntide, died a martyr to CliriKtmnity. Hi- son Aahod gained 

 the confidence of the Caliph, who in 859 installed him king of 

 Armenia. He became the founder of the Bagratitle dynasty, which 

 occupied the throne of Armenia till the year 1080. 

 greater part of the 10th century, in the reign of Apas (928-951), 

 Ashod III. (H51-977), and Sempad II. (S77-S>89>, Armenia enjoyed 

 tranquillity. Not long afterwards the country became : 

 contest between the Greek empire and the St-ljukiile Turk-. Gagik, 

 the last of the Bagratide kings, was treacherously killed 

 Armenia, though still partially governed by native ] 

 Orpelians and others), became mainly dependent on the Greek ei: 

 while in the northern provinces the Turks, and in the southern parts 

 the Kurds, encroached upon it* li- 



From the year 1226 Georgia and Armenia suffered much from the 

 incursion of the Mogols, which continued till near the end of the 

 13th century. 



i the murder of Gagik, and the fall of the Bsgratide dominion 

 in Armenia Proper, Rupen, a relative of the last kii !i lii^ 



family into Phrygia, and established an Armenian principality in the 

 Taurus Mountains north of Cilicia, which gradually extend 

 boundaries to the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. It soon derived 

 importance from the services which its princes rendered to the 

 monarchs of Europe during the crusades. Leon II., who reigned 

 from 1185 till 1219, was in 1198 crowned king of Cilicia by 

 bishop Conrad of Mainz, who was sent for that purpose by the German 

 emperor Henry VI., and Pope Cselestinus III.; and a crown was 

 likewise presented to him by the Greek emperor Alexius. The 

 Cilicio-Armenian kingdom continued till the latter part of the 1 4th 

 century. Its capital waa Sis or Cis, situated at the foot of Mount 

 Taurus in a feeder of the Jihun about 40 miles N.R. of Adana, in the 

 south-east of Asia Minor. The lart king, Leon VI., was in 1875 taken 

 prisoner by the Mamluks of Egypt, and after a long captivity 

 wandered as an exile through Europe, from one country to another, 

 till he died at Paris in 1393. 



The Mamluks were soon obliged to yield up their rule over Cilicia 

 and part of Armenia Proper to the Ottomans. The Armenians now 

 a nation without a country or home, rather th. cruel 



persecutions in the land of their fathers, spread tin 11 over 



Asia and Europe. As early as the year 1331 Armenian refugees came 

 to Kamenz in the Lausitz (Lusatia.) Others followed tin- ottoman 

 conquerors to Constantinople (1453), where the grand Signior gave 

 them a patriarch. They were well received in Hussia, where numbers 

 established themselves at New-Nakhchivan on the Don, at Moscow, 

 and at St. Petersburg. In 1605, 12,000 families were led forcibly away 

 from Armenia into Persia, by the command of Shah Abbas. They 

 settled at Julfa, one of the suburbs of Ispahan, giving to this quarter 

 of the city the name of their city .Julfn or Pjnlfo, on the Araxcs in 

 Armenia. Many who rtill remained at Tauriz, Era-rum, Kara, and 

 Bayazid, have as previously mentioned recently withdrawn to the 

 Russian provinces south of the Caucasus. Armenian merchants ore 

 now found established in India, on the islands of the Eastern 

 Archipelago, in Singapore, in Afghanistan, Persia, in every part of 

 Asia Minor, in Syria and Kgypt, and in nearly all the countries of 

 Europe. Almost even ' fair or mart, from Leipzig and 



London to Bombay and Calcutta, is visited by them. 



Oiaracterittirt of the Armenian Language. The Ann ni:m language 

 is rough, and overcharged with consonants. It is allied to the most 

 ancient language of the Arinn family. Besides a gre:i t Indo- 



Germanic roots, it shows many analogies to the Finnic dialects of 

 Siberia, and other languages of northern Asia, 

 excessively complicated ; like the northern languages it hog 



an article attached i the end of words. It does not diltinguii 

 genders. The declension has ten cases in the singular and plural ; and 

 in the conjugation f the verbs we find a corresponding copiousness 

 of inflection. The ancient or literary Am in its 



grammar and structure from the present Armenian that it may be 

 considered as a dead language. In good Armenian authors of any 

 age or country no i <lialectM observable, notion 



resembles that of the Greek language. Into the modem 

 many foreign words have been introduced, especially from the Tu i 

 the grammar is altered, and the construction of sentences is modelled 

 after the fn-l Turkish language. The language is written 



from left to right ; the alphabet now in use consists and 



was introduced in A.I). 406. Before this date Syrian ami other foreign 

 :tlpli.ibte were used. 



>'>ove 100 years there has existed at Venice a congregation of 

 Armenian monks, who are constantly publishing works on religion, 

 theology, literature, and science, such as they think likeh 

 their countrymen. They dwell on the little island of Son Lazaro, and 

 call themselves Mekhiteristc, which name they derive from that of 

 their founder, Peter Mekhitar, who fixed himself at Venice in 1717. 



