History of Sasanian Armenia

Sasanian Armenia, also known as Persian Armenia and Persarmenia (Armenian: Պարսկահայաստան – Parskahayastan), may either refer to the periods where Armenia (Middle Persian: 𐭠𐭫𐭬𐭭𐭩‎ – Armin) was under the suzerainty of the Sasanian Empire, or specifically to the parts of Armenia under its control such as after the partition of 387 AD when parts of western Armenia were incorporated into the Byzantine Empire while the rest of Armenia came under Sasanian suzerainty whilst maintaining its existing kingdom until 428.

In 428, Armenian nobles petitioned Bahram V to depose Artaxias IV (r. 422); Bahram V (r. 420–438) abolished the Kingdom of Armenia and appointed Veh Mihr Shapur as marzban (governor of a frontier province, "margrave") of the country, which marked the start of a new era known as the Marzpanate period (Armenian: Մարզպանական Հայաստան – Marzpanakan Hayastan), a period when marzbans, nominated by the Sasanian emperor, governed eastern Armenia, as opposed to the western Byzantine Armenia which was ruled by several princes, and later governors, under Byzantine suzerainty. The Marzpanate period ended with the Arab conquest of Armenia in the 7th century, when the Principality of Armenia was established. An estimated three million Armenians were under the influence of the Sasanian marzpans during this period.

The marzban was invested with supreme power, even imposing death sentences; but he could not interfere with the age-long privileges of the Armenian nakharars. The country as a whole enjoyed considerable autonomy. The office of Hazarapet, corresponding to that of Minister of the Interior, public works and finance, was mostly entrusted to an Armenian, while the post of Sparapet (commander-in-chief) was only entrusted to an Armenian. Each nakharar had his own army, according to the extent of his domain. The "National Cavalry" or "Royal force" was under the Commander-in-chief. The tax collectors were all Armenians. The courts of justice and the schools were directed by the Armenian clergy. Several times, an Armenian nakharar became Marzpan, as did Vahan Mamikonian in 485 after a period of rebellion against the Iranians.

Three times during the Marzpanic period, Iranian kings launched persecutions against Christianity in Armenia. The Iranians had tolerated the invention of the Armenian alphabet and the founding of schools, thinking these would encourage the spiritual separation of Armenia from the Byzantines, but on the contrary, the new cultural movement among the Armenians proved to be conducive to closer relations with Byzantium.

Background
Christianity became the state religion of Armenia in 301. In 367 Armenia was divided between Sasanian Iran and the Roman Empire. The former established control in Eastern Armenia after the fall of the Arshakuni Armenian kingdom in 428.

History

Marzbanate (428–646)
In 428, Armenian nobles, nakharar, dissatisfied with the rule of Artaxias IV petitioned emperor Bahram V to depose him. Bahram V abolished the Kingdom of Armenia and appointed Veh Mihr Shapur as marzban (governor of a frontier province, "margrave") of the country.

In 465, Adhur Gushnasp was appointed by the Sasanian emperor Peroz I (r. 459–484) as the marzban of Armenia, replacing Adhur Hormizd. In 475, the Mamikonian princess Shushanik, was murdered by her husband Prince Varsken, a recent convert to Zoroastrianism, because she refused to convert and wanted to stay Christian. Varsken was then executed by Vakhtang I, king of Iberia.

Peroz I, eager to avenge Varsken, sent his general Shapur Mihran to Iberia. Vakhtang then appealed to the Huns and the Armenian nobles, citing solidarity between Christians. After carefully weighing the decision, the Mamikonian prince Vahan Mamikonian agreed to revolt against the Sasanians. He defeated and killed Adhur Gushnasp, and thereafter declared Sahak II Bagratuni as the new marzban. He also kept repelling several Sasanian counter-attacks.

In 482, Shapur Mihran began to become a big threat to the security of Iberia, which made Vakhtang request Armenian aid. Vahan and Sahak shortly arrived to Iberia at the head of a big army, but were defeated in Akesga, where Sahak was killed. Vahan fled with the remnants of the Armenian army into the mountains, where he led guerrilla actions against the Sasanians, while Shapur Mihran managed to regain control of Armenia. However, Shapur Mihran was shortly ordered to return to the Sasanian capital of Ctesiphon. Vahan quickly used the opportunity to regain control of Armenia.

In the spring of 484, however, Shapur Mihran returned as the head of a new army and forced Vahan to flee to refuge near the Byzantine frontier, at Tao and Taron. During the same period, the Sasanian noble Zarmihr Karen from the Karenid family, was successful in another campaign against the Armenians, and managed to capture several of them, including noblemen from the Kamsarakan family. Zarmihr shortly delivered the Armenian captives to Shapur Mihran, who delivered them to Izad Gushnasp, promising the Armenian captives to make Peroz spare them.

However, an unexpected event changed the course of events: the death of the Sasanian king Peroz I in 484 in war against the Hephthalites, causing the withdrawal of the Sasanians in Armenia and recovery of Dvin and Vagharshapat. Struggling to suppress the revolt of his brother Zarir, Peroz's successor, Balash (r. 484-488), needed the help of the Armenians: in exchange for military support, he agreed to sign the Nvarsak Treaty, which granted religious freedom to the Christians and the prohibition of Zoroastrianism in Armenia, including much greater autonomy for the nakharar. Vahan was also recognized as sparapet and the property of the Mamikonian family and its allies were returned.

Between 515-516, several Hunnic tribes kept making incursions into Armenia—the Armenian nobleman Mjej I Gnuni then decided to organize a counter-attack, where he successfully managed to repel them. As a reward, Kavadh I appointed him as the marzban of Armenia in 518. During this governorship, Mjej maintained religious peace. In 527, he repelled several other Hunnic invasions. In 548, he was succeeded by Gushnasp Bahram.

Chihor-Vishnasp, a member of the Suren family and a relative of Khosrow I himself, was in 564 appointed as marzban. During this period, the Armenian aristocracy was split between two parties, the national one which was headed by a member of the Mamikonian family, and a pro-Sasanian one, which was headed by a member of the Siunia family.

Chihor Vishnasp not only harshly treated the Christian Armenians who were suspected of secretly siding with the Byzantines, but also did the same with the rest of the Christian Armenian population. Claiming to exploit on the command of the king, he persecuted the Christian Armenians and even built a fire-temple in Dvin. These actions soon resulted in a massive uprising in late 571 or early 572, which was led by Vardan III Mamikonian. On 23 February 572, the Armenian rebels seized Dvin, and had Chihor-Vishnasp killed.

The Armenians and the Achaemenid Empire
After the fall of the Medo Empire in 550 BC. C. Cyrus, the leader of the Persians took control of the empire and conquered Asia Minor and Mesopotamia. Cyrus's son Cambyses followed his father in the Egyptian campaign. Armenia became a dependency of Persia.

Armenian cavalry and infantry troops had taken part in the conquest of Cyrus of Lydia in 546 and of Babylon in 539. A rebellion of ten nations - one of them Armenia - broke out against Persia during the reign of Darius I (522 - 486).

The Armenians and the Sassanid Empire
The Armenians adopted Christianity as the official state religion in the year 301. Armenia was divided between the Sassanid Empire of Persia and the Roman Empire. The first established control in eastern Armenia after the fall of the Armenian kingdom Arsácida in 428.

Vartan Mamikonian
With the increase in conflicts between Romans and Sassanids, Yazdegerd II began to see Christianity as a political threat to the cohesion of the Persian empire. The conversion to Christianity by the Armenians was of particular interest to him. After a successful invasion of the Eastern Roman Empire, Yazdegerd summoned the Armenian nobles to Ctesiphon and converted them to Zoroastrianism. This outraged the Armenian population, and under Vartan Mamikonian leadership an army of 66,000 Armenians rebelled against the Sassanid Empire. Yazdegerd quickly quelled the rebellion at the Battle of Avarayr.

Consequences
The Persians' military success over Armenia ensured that it would remain part of the Sassanid Empire for several centuries. However, the Armenian resistance did not end until the Treaty of Nvarsak, which guaranteed Armenia more freedom under Sassanid rule.

The Armenians and the Safavid Empire
Due to its strategic importance, Armenia was constantly disputed and changed hands on several occasions and successively between the rule of Persia and the Ottomans. In the Turkish-Persian wars, it should be noted that Yerevan changed hands fourteen times between 1513 and 1737.

In 1604, Shah Abbas I used a military strategy in which he destroyed everything the Ottomans had to subsist - farms, houses and scorched earth, in the Ararat valley. The ancient Armenian town of Julfa, in the Nakhichevan province was taken at the beginning of the invasion. From there, Abbas's army occupied Araratian across the plain. The shah followed a careful strategy, advanced and retired when the occasion demanded, determined not to risk his company in a direct confrontation with the strongest enemy forces.

When Kars was besieging, he learned of the arrival of a large Ottoman army, commanded by Djghazadé Sinan Pasha. They were ordered to retreat, but the enemy denied the possibility of self-resupply, ordered the destruction of the largest Armenian cities and farms on the plain. As part of this plan, the population was ordered to accompany the Persian army on its retreat. Some of the 300,000 people were left to fend for themselves on the banks of the Aras River. Those who tried to resist mass deportation were killed instantly. The Shah had ordered the destruction of the only bridge, so that people were forced to cross the rushing waters, where a large number of Armeniansthey perished drowned, or swept away by the currents, before reaching the opposite bank. This was only the beginning of his ordeal. An eyewitness, Guyan's father, describes the plight of the refugees in this way:

It was not just the winter cold that caused torture and death to deportees. The greatest suffering came from hunger. The provisions that the deportees had brought with them were soon consumed... The children were crying for food or milk, none of which existed, because the women had dry breasts even from hunger... Many women, hungry and exhausted, he would leave his hungry children on the side of the road, and they followed their tortuous path. Some may go to the nearby forests in search of something to eat. Usually, he doesn't come back. Many times those who died served as food for life.

Unable to maintain his army on the desolate plain, Sinan Pasha was forced to win in Van. Armies that were sent in pursuit of the Shah in 1605 were defeated, and Abbas in 1606 had recovered all the territory that he lost to the Turks early in his reign. The tactic of razing land tactics had worked, albeit at a terrible cost to the Armenian people. Of the 300,000 deportees, it is estimated that less than half survived the Isfahan march. In the conquered territories, Abbas established the khanate of Yerevan, a Muslim principality under the rule of the Safavid Empire. Armenians made up less than 20% of its population as a result of the deportation of much of the Armenian populationof Ararat valley and the surrounding region in 1605 by Shah Abbas I.

Vardan Mamikonian
Sasanian king Yazdegerd II began to view Christianity in the Northern lands as a political threat to the cohesiveness of the Iranian empire. The dispute appears to be based on Iranian military considerations of the time given that according to Acts 2:9 in the Acts of the Apostles there were Persians, Parthians and Medes (all Iranian tribes) among the very first new Christian converts at Pentecost and Christianity has had a long history in Iran as a minority religion, dating back to the very early years of the faith. Nevertheless, the conversion to Christianity by Armenians in the North was of particular concern to Yazdegerd II. After a successful invasion of the Eastern Roman Empire, Yazdegerd began summoning Armenian nobles to Ctesiphon and reconverted them to Zoroastrianism (a faith many Armenians shared with Iranians prior to Christianity). This upset the Armenian population, and under the leadership of Vardan Mamikonian an army of 66,000 Armenians rebelled against the Sasanian empire. Yazdegerd quickly subdued the rebellion at the Battle of Avarayr.

Nvarsak Treaty
The military success of the Iranians ensured that Armenia would remain part of the Sasanian empire for centuries to come. However, Armenian objections did not end until the Nvarsak Treaty, which guaranteed Armenia more freedom and freedom of religion (Christianity) under Sasanian rule.

Sasanian coins produced in Armenia
Sasanian government had produced gold, silver and bronze coins in Armenia. 813 of these coins were found in 34 regions in Armenia; being most of them found in Dvin (ancient city) and Gyumri. Most of these coins were silver coins.

Viceroys

Sasanian kings of Armenia

Tenure	King	Notes
252/3-272	Hormizd I	Sasanian prince, nominated by his father Shapur I.
272-299	Narseh	Sasanian prince, nominated by his brother Hormizd I.

Marzbans of Armenia

Tenure	King	Notes
252/3-272	Hormizd I	Sasanian prince, nominated by his father Shapur I.
272-299	Narseh	Sasanian prince, nominated by his brother Hormizd I.

Marzbans of Armenia

Tenure	Marzban	Notes
428-442	Veh Mihr Shapur	Iranian grandee, nominated by Bahram V.
442-451	Vasak, prince of Syunik	Armenian nobleman, nominated by Yazdgerd II.
451-465	Adhur Hormizd (in Armenian sources: Adrormizd)	Iranian grandee, nominated by Yazdgerd II.
465-481	Adhur Gushnasp (in Armenian sources: Arderveshnasp)	Iranian grandee, nominated by Peroz I.
481-482	Sahak II Bagratuni	Armenian nobleman, elected by the rebellious Armenian nobles. Killed at the Battle of Akesga.
482-482	Shapur Mihran	Iranian military occupation.
482-483	Vahan I Mamikonian	Head of provisional government.
483-483	Zarmihr Karen	Iranian military occupation.
483-484	Shapur of Ray	Iranian grandee, nominated by Peroz I. Cyril Toumanoff suggests a marzpan named Andigan for the same period.
484-505/510	Vahan I Mamikonian (2nd term)	Armenian nobleman, nominated by Peroz I.
505-509 or 510-514	Vard Mamikonian ("Vard the Patrician")	Brother of Vahan I, recognized as marzpan by Kavadh I.
11 years	Several Iranian marzpans perses	According to Samuel of Ani: "After the patrician Vard, brother of Vahan, Iranian marzpans governed Armenia for 11 years... The government of Armenia passed then to Mjej of the Gnuni family, who exercised it for 30 years".
518-548	Mjej I Gnuni	Mentioned by Cyril Toumanoff and Gérard Dédéyan, but not included by René Grousset.
548-552 or 552-554	Gushnasp Bahram
552-560 or 554-560	Tan-Shapur
560-564	Varazdat
564-572	Chihor-Vishnasp
572-573	Vardan III Mamikonian	Leader of anti-Iranian rebellion.
572-574	Golon Mihran	Iranian general tasked by Khosrau I with subduing the revolt. Cyril Toumanoff substitutes him and Vardan with Vardan-Gushnasp.
573-577	Vardan III Mamikonian	Under Byzantine protectorate. For the same period, Krikor Jacob Basmadjian a Cyril Toumanoff have Philip, prince of Syunik.
577-580	Tamkhosrau	Iranian grandee, nominated by Khosrau I.
580-581	Varaz Vzur	Iranian grandee, nominated by Hormizd IV
581-582/588	Pahlav	Iranian grandee, nominated by Hormizd IV.
582/588-588/589	Frahat	Iranian grandee, nominated by Hormizd IV.
588/589-590	Hrartin (Fravardin)	Iranian grandee, nominated by Hormizd IV.
590-591	Musel II Mamikonian	Installed by the Byzantines.
592-605	Vindatakan	These five marzpans are mentioned by Cyril Toumanoff.
	Nakhvefaghan
	Merakbout
	Yazden
	Boutmah
604-611 or 616	Smbat IV Bagratuni	Christian Settipani records him as marzpan from 599 to 607. He is not mentioned as marzpan by Toumanoff. René Grousset holds that Khosrau II named him marzpan following his victories in Hyrcania, ca. 604, and adds that he possibly continued in office until his death in 616-617. However, he also mentions three other marzpans over the same period (see following).
611-613	Shahrayeanpet	Marzpan at Dvin, in eastern Armenia, along with Shahin Vahmanzadegan as pahghospan in western (former Byzantine) Armenia
613-613	Parshenazdat	Iranian grandee, nominated by Khosrau II.
616-619	Namdar-Gushnasp	Iranian grandee, nominated by Khosrau II.
619-624	Shahraplakan (Sarablagas)	Iranian grandee, nominated by Khosrau II.
624-627	Rotshvehan	Iranian grandee, nominated by Khosrau II.
627-628		A large part of Armenia reverted to Byzantine control.
ca. 628	Varaztirots II Bagratuni	Armenian nobleman, named marzpan by Kavadh II for the portions of Armenia remaining under Iranian rule. Following the onset of the Muslim conquest of Iran, Varaztirots aligned himself with the Byzantines.
630-635	Mjej II Gnuni	Armenian nobleman, named governor of Armenia by the Byzantine emperor Heraclius.
635-638	David Saharuni	Armenian nobleman, he murdered Mjej and proclaimed himself governor. He was recognized by Heraclius, who named him kouropalates and ishkhan of Armenia.
638-643		No central authority.
643-645	Theodore Rshtuni
645/646	Varaztirots II Bagratuni	Following the complete collapse of Iran, he was named Prince of Armenia by the Byzantines, but died before being formally invested

Modern era
Throughout the xvi th and beginning of the xvii th centuries, Armenia is the battlefield on which confront the Ottomans and Persians, passing alternately under the domination of one or the other. The treaty of Qasr-i-Chirin puts an end to this situation in 1639 and grants Eastern Armenia to Persia. The country is strongly depopulated, following the decision of Abbas IPersian (performed 1604 - 1605) to deportof Armenians in the region of Isfahan, in order to create a center of commerce in New Julfa, but also to clear the area in front of the Ottoman armies and prevent their supply.

At the beginning of the xviii th century, following the decline of the Persian Safavid and first Russian incursions in the Caucasus, the Ottomans decided to react and walk on Persian Armenia; Yerevan thus falls on June 7, 1724, but Karabagh and Zanguezour resist under the direction of David Bek; it was only in 1730 that the Persian troops managed to retake the region. In 1747, the death of Nadir Shah, the Persian Armenia is divided between three khanates relatively autonomous, the khanates of Yerevan to Nakhchivan and Karabakh.

The beginning of the xix th century saw the little Persian Armenia to fall slightly to the Russians. The Russo-Persian War of 1804-1813, concluded by the Treaty of Golestan, gave rise to the taking of the Karabakh Khanate. As for the Khanates of Yerevan and Nakhichevan, they fell at the end of the Russo-Persian War of 1826-1828, ratified by the Treaty of Turkmanchai. Persian Armenia then made way for Russian Armenia.

History of Byzantine Armenia

Byzantine Armenia, sometimes known as Western Armenia, is the name given to the parts of Kingdom of Armenia that became part of the Byzantine Empire. The size of the territory varied over time, depending on the degree of control the Byzantines had over Armenia.

The Byzantine and Sassanid Empires divided Armenia in 387 and in 428. Western Armenia fell under Byzantine rule, and Eastern Armenia fell under Sassanid control. Even after the establishment of the Bagratid Armenian Kingdom, parts of historic Armenia and Armenian-inhabited areas were still under Byzantine rule.

The Armenians had no representation in the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon in 451, due to their struggle against the Sassanids in an armed rebellion. For that reason, there appeared a theological drift between Armenian and Byzantine Christianity.

Regardless, many Armenians became successful in the Byzantine Empire. Numerous Byzantine emperors were either ethnically Armenian, half-Armenian, part-Armenian or possibly Armenian; although culturally Greek. The best example of this is Emperor Heraclius, whose father was Armenian and mother Cappadocian. Emperor Heraclius began the Heraclean Dynasty (610–717). Basil I is another example of an Armenian beginning a dynasty; the Macedonian dynasty. Other great emperors were Romanos I, John I Tzimiskes, and Nikephoros II.

History
Origins
Lucullus and Pompey had pushed the influence of Rome to Armenia around 66 BC. AD. Tigrane II, the Armenian king of that time, was forced to pay tribute to the Romans and he lost many territories. Armenia had become a buffer state between Rome and Arsacid Persia. After the death of Tigrane II, the Roman general Marc Antoine tried to give the kingdom to one of his sons. The general's defeat at Actium in 31 BC. AD, however, ended his ambition to leave the kingdomto his descendants. Artaxias II, grandson of Tigrane, succeeds with the help of the Persians, to regain control of the territory. Towards the end of the 1 st century BC, internal conflicts between the pro-Roman and propersian Armenians precipitated the Artaxiad dynasty towards its end in 10 BC. AD. In the first century, Armenia was politically divided between the Roman Empireand Arsacid Persia. To ensure they have some control over Armenia, the Romans offer a compromise. Aware of the fact that the Persians are very influential in Armenia and that the Armenian monarchy is of Persian origin, the Romans propose to leave this Persian monarchy at the head of the country but they want to give the crown to the king. In this way, the Arsacids retain their power over Armenia and Rome made it a protectorate. The situation is quite stable until iv th century despite some turbulence on both sides of the border.

The iv th to the vii th century
In 387, the Roman situation was not at its best due to the Germanic invasions. In addition, Persia knows the emergence of a new dynasty, the Sassanids. A certain influence on Armenia must be kept. This is why the two powers agree on a division of the kingdom. Thus, the region becomes three new political entities: the imperial province of Armenia minor located west of the Euphrates, the kingdom of Great Armenia located east and the satrapiesArmenian women in the South. The satrapies and the kingdom of Great Armenia are under Persian influence and represent 4/5 of the historic Armenian territory. The imperial province is headed by a Comes Armeniae, a governor of species, until the reign of Justinian I to vi th century. During his reign, Justinian increased the size of the imperial province by integrating part of the territory of the southern satrapies and part of the Pont region in Anatolia. This territorial expansion has resulted in the creation of 4 new territorial entities, the provinces of Armenia I to IV 5. These Byzantine provinces reached their territorial apogee during the reign of the Emperor Mauritius, which extended Armenian territory to the east near Dvin and to the northwest near Lake Van by the peace treaty of 591.

The Armenian provinces were finally conquered in the middle of the vii th century by the Arabs after increasing tensions between Byzantium and Armenia. In fact, Byzantium tried to integrate the Armenian Church into its own and to impose its worship and traditions. This attempt at religious imperialism ignited the anger of the local nobles as well as that of the clergy. So when the Arabs marched on the provinces, local forces did not offer much resistance.

Arab domination and the revival of Armenian royal power
The vii th century marked a change not only for Armenia but for almost Near and Middle East. A new political force, the Arabs overthrow the Sassanid power in Persia and snatch Syria and Egypt from the Byzantines. This new power allows significant social changes in Armenia. At the start of the Arab presence taxes were low and social control was moderate. The occupiers recruited Armenian horsemen to protect themselves from attacks from the Khazars in the North Caucasus. In addition, Armenia, Iberiaand Caucasian Albania are politically reorganized into a single province called Armîniya. During this period, the provincial governor bore the title of ostikan. The western border of Arminiya was militarized and turned against Byzantium. If this period is marked by a cultural development and renewal, the Arab government of the Umayyads and later the Abbasids has always been very difficult to establish legally on the territory of Armenia. Regular revolts took place against Arab administrators due to tightening of power. Then, before the character hotter insurgencies, the Caliph Abbasid recognizes the representative of Bagratid family, Ashot I st as ruler of Armenia and releases nakharars who revolted. Indeed, the ix th century, the Abbasid Caliphate enters a difficult period and Byzantium began an expansion to the East. During the same period, Ashot I first became ruler of the dynasty Bagratid north and south during this time, the arçrouni dynasty control areaVaspourakan. This short national revival ends during the second part of the x th century, when the Byzantine Empire extends again its territory to Armenia and reinstate the imperial court.

x th and xi th centuries
If the first part of the x th century was characterized by the revival of royal power in Armenia, the second part however, marks the return of the Byzantines in Armenia. By the end of the x th century, the Bagratuni kingdom and arçrouni of Great Armenia fell one after the other into the hands Byzantine: the Taron in 968, the Tayk in 1001, the Vaspurakan in 1021 or 1022, Ani in 1045, Kars in 1065; only the Lorri escapes the emperors. If the Taron becomes in 968, an imperial province, it is not at this time of a pure and simple assimilation. Indeed, the Emperor Jean Tzimiskès and the Bagratide king Ashot III collaborate during this period. During the reign of Basil II, the tone changes and he goes forward to assimilate the other Armenian territories. The aggressiveness of the Byzantine invasion forces King Arçrouni Gagik IIto abdicate and entrust his lands to the Byzantines. Most of the Armenian territories were integrated into imperial themes such as that of Iberia and Mesopotamia. This Byzantine domination, which sees most of the Armenian nobility migrating to Anatolia and Cilicia 16, is short-lived: the Seljuk threat is indeed on the horizon.

The first foray occurred in 1045 - 1046, followed by many others, and, theAugust 16, 1064, sultan Alp Arslan takes Ani. Most of Armenia then succumbed to the Seljuk assaults, with the exception of Lorri and Siounie; the battle of Manzikert, in 1071, consecrates the conquest of Armenia, just like the geographical rupture of Byzantium with this country. The country is then integrated into the Persian Seljuk and entrusted to various emirs based notably Dvin and Ganzak, the last islands (Lorri and Siounie) succumbing to the xii th Century.

Armenian military in the Byzantine Army
Armenia made great contributions to Byzantium through its troops of soldiers. The empire was in need of a good army as it was constantly being threatened. The army was relatively small, never exceeding 150,000 men. The military was sent to different parts of the empire, and took part in the most fierce battles and never exceeded 20,000 or 30,000 men. From the 5th century forwards the Armenians were regarded as the main constituent of the Byzantine army. Procopius recounts that the scholarii, the palace guards of the emperor, "were selected from amongst the bravest Armenians".

Armenian soldiers in the Byzantine army are cited during the following centuries, especially during the 9th and the 10th centuries, which might have been the period of greatest participation of the Armenians in the Byzantine army. Byzantine and Arab historians are unanimous in recognizing significance of the Armenians soldiers. Charles Diehl, for instance, writes: “The Armenian units, particularly during this period, were numerous and well trained.” Another Byzantine historian praises the decisive role which the Armenian infantry played in the victories of the Byzantine emperors Nicephorus Phocas and John Tzimiskes.

At that time the Armenians served side by side with the Norsemen who were in the Byzantine army. This first encounter between the Armenian mountain-dwellers and the Norse has been discussed by Nansen, who brings these two elements closer to each other and records: “It was the Armenians who together with our Scandinavian forefathers made up the assault units of Byzantine.” Moreover, Bussel underlines the similarities in the way of thinking and the spirit of the Armenian feudal lords and the northern warriors. He claims that, in both groups, there was a strange absence and ignorance of government and public interest and at the same time an equally large interest in achieving personal distinctions and a loyalty towards their masters and leaders.

Armenian Emperors of Byzantium
The partition of the Roman Empire between the two sons of the Emperor Theodosius was soon followed by a predominance of foreign elements in the court of Byzantium, the eastern half of the divided world. The proximity of this capital of the East to Armenia attracted to the shores of the Bosporus a great number of Armenians, and for three centuries they played a distinguished part in the history of the Eastern Empire.

The important role played in the history of Byzantium by the Armenians has been generally unrecognized.

Council of Theodosiopolis (593)
After the conclusion of long Byzantine-Persian War (572-591), direct Byzantine rule was extended to all western regions of Armenia. In order to strengthen political control over newly annexed regions, emperor Maurice (582-602) decided to support pro-Chalcedonian fraction of the local Armenian Church. In 593, regional council of western Armenian bishops was convened in Theodosiopolis, and proclaimed full allegiance to the Chalcedonian Definition. The council also elected John (Yovhannes, or Hovhannes) of Bagaran as new Catholicos of Chalcedonian Armenians.

Religion
Armenia is often considered the first country in the world to have adopted Christianity as the official religion. Located at the crossroads between the Greek and Syriac churches, the Armenian Church was influenced by them. The Church of Armenia distances itself from the Imperial Church from the Council of Chalcedon in 451.

The peculiarities of the Armenian Church
The official Christianization of Armenia is attributed to the Bishop of Cappadocia, Gregory the Illuminator at the iv th century. The latter converted King Tiridates as well as the entire royal court and the Armenian nobility After this conversion, Gregory was charged with building the Church of Armenia and organizing his clergy. In the iv th century the Armenian church has several features that make the already different from the imperial Byzantine Church. First of all, the Armenian high clergy is made up of about 12 bishops who are under the direction of a Catholicos, the equivalent of the patriarch. The Catholicos was inspired by the Persian pontiff and was to receive the title at Caesarea in Cappadocia. The king and the head of the Church worked hand in hand. But given the feudal structure of the country, that the Catholicos was working closely with the king caused administrative problems. Then, the pontiffs were very often at the beginning of Armenian ecclesiastical history, people who followed the line of Gregory the Illuminator. However, when there was a civil conflict, it was clerics who were in the line of the Greek bishop Aghbianos or a Syrian bishop who would occupy the post of Catholicos. To simplify, the catholicosGreeks were closer to the Byzantine Church and were more zealots while their Syrian counterparts were less intrusive in the affairs of state and less intense in their beliefs. The very fact that there were clerics of Greek or Syriac inspiration can be explained by the training of priests who were trained in one or the other language depending on the region. In addition, translators were trained to comment on the Eucharist in Armenian before the faithful so that they would understand. Besides, nepotism was almost institutional in this Church at its beginnings. For a few generations, the Catholicos and probably the bishops also passed their title to the next generation. Finally, the v th century saw the birth of the Armenian alphabet that enables the translation of the liturgy and Christian and Christianity has been able to penetrate the popular class. The Armenian Church continued to evolve over time, but it was in the context of conflict with the Byzantine Church that it was transformed.

Conflicts with the Imperial Church
The break between the Armenian and imperial churches originates discussions related to the nature of Christ in the early centuries of Christianity. It must first be understood that the first three councils on the nature of Jesus Christ, those of Nicea, Constantinople and Ephesus, were never a source of controversy in the Church of Armenia and that the Pre-existing conflicts between the two Churches were of an administrative nature. These conflicts were not of the same gravity as the Council of 451. It is, in fact, the Council of Chalcedony which is at the origin of the birth of an autocephalous Armenian Church. When the council took place, the Armenians faced a serious crisis that threatened Christianity in the Sassanid part of their kingdom. Indeed, the king of Persia had ordered the conversion of the Armenians to Mazdéisme. Busy in protecting its religion from the Sassanid threat, Armenia had not sent any representative to the Council of Chalcedon and was not made aware of its conclusions until after the conflict with the Persians. As soon as the Church learned of the content of the council, she immediately rejected it, declaring it Nestorian and thus heretical. Armenians were later labeled as monophysites by the Western Churchand the Eastern Church but the fact is that they were not monophysites but rather adherent to the doctrine of Saint Cyril of Alexandria. This means that they rejected the confusion of the divine and human natures of Christ preached by Eutychès, but that they reject the idea according to which the two natures are united as wanted by the council of Chalcedon. On several occasions, during the following centuries, the Byzantines tried to reconcile their Church with that of the Armenians by various means. First, the Emperor Maurice at the end of the vi th century, has set up a Catholicos rival to try to discredit the Catholicosofficial. The result of this attempt was to create a short schism in the Church of Armenia. Mauritius' successors will also try other approaches, but all of their attempts at compromise have been unsuccessful. During the revival period of royal power in Armenia, negotiations take place between the Byzantines and the Bagratuni kings unsuccessful. Finally, the last attempt at reconciliation takes place at the xii th century Cilician Armenia during the reign of Manuel I Comnenus and is another failure. While it is true that the two Churches were divided during most of the Byzantine period of Armenia, the two Churches also have important points in common. The Armenian liturgy is the liturgy of Saint Basil, a Greek bishop, and the Armenian clergy is equally divided between the black clergy and the white clergy (respectively married and single).

Armenian arts, literature and architecture
The Art of Byzantine Armenia can be subdivided into two main periods: iv e in the first half of the viii th century and the second half of ix th century xi th century. These two periods correspond respectively to the first Byzantine period and the rebirth of royal power under the Bagratides (and the return to the Byzantine Empire).

Arts and architecture of the first Byzantine period (305-750)
In art during this first period, we see many sculptures on the cornices of buildings and sometimes biblical scenes or portraits of patrons inside the buildings. However, it should be understood that the interior decoration is only done in Armenian capitals. Armenian art has in particular that it is not only biblical characters who are represented but also historical characters and laymen 36. During this same period, we can see in illuminations, frescoes and mosaics.In addition, even if Byzantium dominated Armenia during this period, Armenian art has Persian influences as to the manner of representing the clothing and posture of the characters.

In architecture, the churches were built in the shape of a cross and surmounted by domes. These same domes were sometimes supported by horns.

Arts and architecture of the royal renaissance period and second Byzantine period (862-1021)
Although there were internal and external changes during these 7 centuries, there were also several elements of continuity especially in architecture. If architecture, buildings retain substantially the same form they had at the vii th century architectural elements Muslims are part of the sculptural decoration. Indeed, the building stones used are of several colors, the interlacing make their appearance in the decoration and we also see the replacement of the tubes by muqarnas.

In painting, the Armenians mainly use the Byzantine style for their illuminations, their paintings but we also see the influence of Islam in the decorative art of the Gospels. Indeed, King Gagik of Kars had a copy of the Gospels with an image representative with his family in Arab held on the East mats

Armenian literature
In literature, during the first period, texts of Greek philosophy were translated and texts relating to historical facts were written or modified to justify political positions. During the second period, the books of stories multiply. For example, one sees a history book written by Shapuh Bagratid which compiles the history of the deluge to 923. It was not the only one to have been published because even the Arçrouni published their version. We also see history books on other peoples being written at the same period, in particular a History on the Caucasian Albanians. Finally, books of tales and stories are compiled and a national epic titled David Sasun reads.

Commerce

Trade before the Arab invasions
From Late Antiquity, Armenia played a crucial role in trade between the West and the East. During the period when Armenia was between the Byzantine Empire and the Sassanian Persia, Byzantium sold products to the whole world from the Eastern trade routes. The Empire bought silk, ivory, precious stones, spices, pearls, flavored products, gold and other products in the East. In addition, by these same trade routes, Byzantium sold glass products,wine, purple clothing and many other products. These trade routes were not only important for Byzantium, which obtained the silks from China and for Persia, which presumably controlled all eastern trade,but also for Armenia. Indeed, trade between the West and the East benefited the Caucasian state enormously, since many cities were built during this period. In addition, in the commercial treaty between Justinian and Choroes I, king of Persia, there was a clause which preserved the border trade posts of Armenia, which allowed him to remain one of the key pieces of international trade. For commercial transactions, the Armenians, having no proper currency, used Byzantine or Arab coins.

From the reconquest to the battle of Mantzikert
Armenia ceased to benefit fully from foreign trade after the invasion of the Seljuk Turks. But the decline began under the Byzantine reconquest. When the Byzantines were reinstated Armenia in its territory, the landed nobility was moved in Cilicia or in Asia Minor and the imperial administration replaced them. The armed forces of the Bagratids were replaced by the Byzantine soldiers for the defense of the territory. Under Constantin Monomaque and Constantin Doukas, the soldiers' pay was cut, a large part of the forces were demobilized. This strategy aimed to improve the state of the finances of the Empire. The Seljuk's first attacks, therefore, encountered only minimal resistance, which enabled them to march easily to Constantinople.

Armenians in Byzantium

The Imperial Armenians
The Armenians were not exclusively concentrated in the provinces of Armenia I to IV and later in the themes which had been created from the territories of Armenia. Some Armenians lived in Constantinople and others were even colonized the lands far from home as the Balkans and southern Italy in the viii th century. In addition to colonizing certain regions of the Empire, the Armenians, especially the Chalcedonian confessional, held important positions in the imperial army. The Armenian military were Hellenized and played a major role in the x th century in the reconquest of Armenia by the Byzantine. In addition, some Byzantine emperors were Armenian or of Armenian descent, for example Leon V and Jean I er Tzimiskès. It is estimated that the same xi th century, about 10 to 15% of the nobility was of Armenian origin although the nobility was not very close to the Comneno. Finally, late in the xi th century, the Armenian nobles participated in the creation of the Cilician Armenia, an independent state from the Byzantine Empire.

Armenians living in the kingdom of Armenia
Even though the Armenians obviously formed a large ethnic group within the Empire, that does not mean that they were all well regarded. Indeed, Greek Byzantine literature often depicts them as deceitful and prone to betrayal. As for the Armenians who lived in Armenia, the reconquest of their lands by the Byzantines was seen as a betrayal. An example of this is in a chronicle of Matthew of Edessa where he speaks of a betrayal on the part of the Armenian nobles of Byzantium. According to him, due to the acts of the nobility, the king of Armenia would never return to rule his kingdom. During this period, non-Chalcedonian Armenianssee the Greeks as evil beings who seek to destroy their faith and their kingdom. In the aftermath of the Battle of Mantzikert, the Armenians of Cilicia never accepted the Council of Chalcedon and some Armenian nobles turned their backs on the Empire. Those who did not live in Cilician Armenia slowly began to turn against the Emperor. The soldiers were no longer reliable, urban Armenian communities isolated themselves Byzantine fear of seeing their corrupt faith and Armenians Balkans or Troas rebelled alongside the enemies of the Empire.

History of Roman Armenia

Roman Armenia refers to the rule of parts of Greater Armenia by the Roman Empire, from the 1st century AD to the end of Late Antiquity. While Armenia Minor had become a client state and incorporated into the Roman Empire proper during the 1st century AD, Greater Armenia remained an independent kingdom under the Arsacid dynasty. Throughout this period, Armenia remained a bone of contention between Rome and the Parthian Empire, as well as the Sasanian Empire that succeeded the latter, and the casus belli for several of the Roman–Persian Wars. Only in 114–118 was Emperor Trajan able to conquer and incorporate it as a short-lived province.

In the late 4th century, Armenia was divided between Rome and the Sasanians, who took control of the larger part of the Armenian Kingdom and in the mid-5th century abolished the Armenian monarchy. In the 6th and 7th centuries, Armenia once again became a battleground between the East Romans (Byzantines) and the Sasanians, until both powers were defeated and replaced by the Muslim Caliphate in the mid-7th century.

History
Following the fall of the Artaxiad dynasty after Pompey's campaign in Armenia in 66 BC, the Kingdom of Armenia was often contested between the Roman Empire and the Parthian Empire during the Roman–Parthian Wars. Throughout most of its history during this period, under the reign of the Arsacid Dynasty, the Armenian nobility was divided among Roman-loyalists, Parthian-loyalists or neutrals.

Armenia often served as a client state or vassal at the frontier of the two large empires and their successors, the Byzantine and Sassanid empires. During the Byzantine–Sasanian wars, Armenia was ultimately partitioned into Byzantine Armenia and Persian Armenia.

Struggle over influence with Parthia
With the eastwards expansion of the Roman Republic during the Mithridatic Wars, the Kingdom of Armenia, under the Artaxiad dynasty, was made a Roman protectorate by Pompey in 66/65 BC. For the next 100 years, Armenia remained under Roman influence. Towards the middle of the 1st century AD, the rising Parthian influence disputed Roman supremacy, which was re-established by the campaigns of Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo.

This conflict ended after the Battle of Rhandeia, in an effective stalemate and a formal compromise: a Parthian prince of the Arsacid line would henceforth sit on the Armenian throne, but his nomination had to be approved by the Roman emperor.

Roman province of Armenia (114–118 AD)
In 114, Emperor Trajan incorporated Armenia into the Empire, making it a full Roman province.
“From Antioch the emperor (Trajan) marched to the Euphrates and farther northward as far as the most northerly legion-camp Satala in Lesser Armenia, whence he advanced into Armenia and took the direction of Artaxata... Trajan was resolved to make this vassal-state a province, and a shift to eastern frontier of the (Roman) empire generally... Armenia yielded to its fate and became a Roman governorship... Trajan thereupon advanced and occupied Mesopotamia...and, like Armenia, Mesopotamia became a Roman province.”

In 113, Trajan invaded the Parthian Empire because he wanted to reinstate a vassal king in Armenia (a few years before fallen under Parthian control). In 114, Trajan from Antiochia in Syria marched on Armenia and conquered the capital Artaxata. Trajan then deposed the Armenian king Parthamasiris and ordered the annexation of Armenia to the Roman Empire as a new province.

The new province reached the shores of the Caspian Sea and bordered to the north with the Caucasian Iberia and Albania, two vassal states of Rome.

As a Roman province Armenia was administered along with Cappadocia by Catilius Severus of the gens Claudia.

The Roman Senate issued coins on this occasion bearing the following inscription: ARMENIA ET MESOPOTAMIA IN POTESTATEM P.R. REDACTAE, thus solidifying Armenia's position as the newest Roman province. A rebellion by the Parthian pretender Sanatruces was put down, though sporadic resistance continued and Vologases III of Parthia managed to secure an area of south-eastern Armenia just before Trajan's death in August 117.

Roman protectorate
After Trajan's death, his successor Hadrian decided not to maintain the province of Armenia. In 118, Hadrian gave Armenia up, and installed Parthamaspates as its king. Parthamaspates was soon defeated by the Parthians, and again fled to the Romans, who granted him the co-rule of Osroene in western Greater Armenia as a consolation.

Sohaemus was named king of Armenia by Roman emperor Antoninus Pius in 140. Just a few years later in 161, Armenia was lost again to Vologases IV of Parthia. In 163, a Roman counter-attack under Statius Priscus defeated the Parthians in Armenia and reinstalled Sohaemus as the Romans' favored candidate on the Armenian throne.

Armenia was in frequent dispute between the two empires and their candidates for the Armenian throne, a situation which lasted until the emergence of a new power, the Sasanians. Rome's power and influence increased over the years since, but Armenia retained its independence, even if only as a vassal state, although it was a Roman ally against the Sasanian Empire. When Roman emperor Septimius Severus sacked the Parthian capital of Ctesiphon, many Armenian soldiers were in his army. Later in the 4th century, they consisted of two Roman legions, the Legio I Armeniaca and the Legio II Armeniaca.

In the second half of the 3rd century, the Sassanid capital of Ctesiphon and areas of southern Armenia were sacked by the Romans under Emperor Carus, and all Armenia, after half a century of Persian rule, was ceded to Diocletian in 299 as a vassal territory.

Eastern Roman Armenia
In 363, a treaty was signed between the East Roman and Sassanid Persian empires, which divided Armenia between the two. The Persians retained the larger part of Armenia ("Persarmenia") while the Romans received a small part of Western Armenia.

Another treaty followed between 384 and 390, the Peace of Acilisene (usually dated c. 387), which established a definite line of division, running from a point just east of Karin (soon to be renamed Theodosiopolis) to another point southwest of Nisibis in Mesopotamia. The area under East Roman control thus increased, but still, about four fifths of the old Kingdom of Armenia remained under Persian rule.

Unlike Armenia Minor west of the Euphrates, which had been constituted into full provinces (Armenia I and Armenia II) under the Diocese of Pontus already in the time of Diocletian, the new territories retained a varying level of autonomy. Armenia Maior, the northern half, was constituted as a civitas stipendaria under a civil governor titled comes Armeniae, meaning that it retained internal autonomy, but was obliged to pay tribute and provide soldiers for the regular East Roman army.

Under Roman rule, Melitene was the base camp of Legio XII Fulminata. It was a major center in Armenia Minor (P'ok'r Hayk'), remaining so until the end of the 4th century. Emperor Theodosius I divided the region into two provinces: First Armenia (Hayk'), with its capital at Sebasteia (modern Sivas); and Second Armenia, with its capital at Melitene.

The Satrapies (Latin: Gentes) in the south on the other hand, which had been under Roman influence already since 298, were a group of six fully autonomous principalities allied to the Empire (civitates foederatae): Ingilene, Sophene, Antzitene, Asthianene, Sophanene and Balabitene. The local Armenian nakharar were fully sovereign in their territories, and were merely required to provide soldiers upon request and to dispatch a golden crown to the emperor, as a token of submission. In return, they received their royal insignia, including red shoes, from the emperor.

The situation remained unchanged for near a century, until a large-scale revolt by the satraps in 485 against Emperor Zeno (r. 474–491). In its aftermath, the satraps were stripped of their sovereignty and their rights of hereditary succession, being in effect reduced to the status of tax-paying and imperially-administered civitates stipendariae.

Emperor Justinian I (r. 527–565) carried out a series of comprehensive administrative reforms. Already soon after his accession in 527, the dux Armeniae (responsible for Armenia Minor) and the comes Armeniae were abolished, and the military forces of the Armenian territories were subordinated to a new magister militum per Armeniam at Theodosiopolis.

In 536, new reforms were enacted that abolished the autonomy of the trans-Euphrates territories and formed four new regular provinces. Armenia Interior was joined with parts of Pontus Polemoniacus and Armenia I to form a new province, Armenia I Magna, the old Armenia I and Armenia II were re-divided into Armenia II and Armenia III, and the old Satrapies formed the new Armenia IV province. In 538, the Armenian nobles rose up against heavy taxation, but were defeated and forced to find refuge in Persia.

Proto-Byzantine period
Around 535 / 536 provinces in which it was divided Armenia were reorganized by the Emperor Justinian. Justinian divided Armenia into four provinces:

Armenia I, governed by a proconsul. It included four cities of old Armenia I (Theodosiopoli, Satala, Nicopoli and Colonea) and two cities of old Polemoniac Pontus. The city of Leontopoli received the honor of being called by the name of the emperor and of being elevated to the rank of metropolis.
Armenia II, governed by a praeses. It corresponded roughly to old Armenia I, with some cities in the past belonging to Pontus.
Armenia III, governed by a comes Iustinianus with both civil and military powers. It corresponded roughly to old Armenia II and included, among others, the cities of Melitene and Arabisso.
Armenia IV, governed by a consular. It included the territories beyond the Euphrates and had been ruled before by native satraps. Its metropolis was Martiropoli.

Until then, the Armenians had lived according to their own laws and traditions, and were not obliged to respect the laws of Rome (Byzantium). Justinian with a series of edicts forced the Armenians to abide by the laws of the Empire. Justinian justified his decision by arguing that it was barbaric that according to Armenian laws women were excluded from the inheritance, and therefore established that, in accordance with Roman law, Armenian women could also inherit. According to some, however, Justinian forced the Armenians to obey Roman law not only because he wanted Roman laws to be applied throughout the Empire but also to shatter the large Armenian estates in several parts and thus weaken the Armenian nobles (according to Armenian law, unlike the Roman one,

In 537/539 a revolt broke out in Armenia, due to the discontent of the population towards the Byzantines, who had raised taxes and reduced the powers of the nakharar. The proximate cause of the revolt, however, was the assassination of Prince Hamazasp of Sper by a Byzantine proconsul. Sedition was repressed in blood and the leaders of the revolt executed or exiled.

In 565, Justinian I died and succeeded him to the throne Justin II (565–578). A year earlier the Sassanid governor of Armenia, of the Suren family, built a fire temple in Dvin near modern Yerevan, and had an influential member of the Mamikonian family killed, sparking a revolt that led to the massacre of the Persian governor and his guard in the 571, while the rebellion had also extended to Iberia. Justin II took advantage of the Armenian revolt to stop the annual tributes to the Sasanides of Cosroe I for the defense of the Caucasus. The Armenians were welcomed as allies, and an army was sent to Sassanid territory and besiegedNisibis in 573. However, the siege failed and the Persians counterattacked by besieging and taking Dara and devastating Syria. Justin II was forced to agree to pay annual tributes in exchange for a five-year truce on the Mesopotamian, although the war continued elsewhere. In 576 Cosroe I attacked Anatolia by plundering Sebasteia and Melitene, but the Sassanid offensive ended with a defeat. Taking advantage of the momentary Persian vulnerability, the Byzantines broke into Sassanid territory. Cosroe asked for peace, but decided to continue the war after a victory by his general Tamkhosrau in Armenia in 577 and the war also resumed in Mesopotamia. The Armenian revolt ended with a general amnesty and Armenia returned to Sassanid hands.

After Cosroe I died, Ormisda IV (579–590) ascended the throne. The war with the Byzantines continued until General Bahram Chobin, sidelined and humiliated by Ormisda, organized a revolt in 589. The following year Ormisda was killed and succeeded by his son Cosroe II (590–628), to the throne but the change of king failed to appease the wrath of Bahram, who defeated Chosroes, forcing him to take refuge in Byzantine territory, and ascending the throne as Bahram VI. With the help of troops provided to him by the Byzantine Emperor Maurice (582–602), Cosroe II managed to achieve a decisive victory over the Bahram army in Ganzak(591), thus managing to return to power. In exchange for Maurizio's help, Cosroe had to cede to the Byzantines all the territories occupied by the Persians during the war, Armenia and part of Iberia. Roman-eastern Armenia thus reached its maximum extent.

Following these conquests, Mauritius reorganized the Armenian provinces into four provinces:

Armenia I: corresponds to Justinian's Armenia III.
Armenia II: corresponds to Justinian's Armenia II.
Greater Armenia: corresponds to Justinian's Armenia I.
Armenia IV: districts of Sophene, Digisene, Anzitene, Orzianine, Muzuron.
Mesopotamia: corresponds to Justinian's Armenia IV with the addition of Arzanene.
Maurizio wrote this letter to Cosroe II, which had important consequences for Armenia:

"We have an ungovernable nation among us that fosters disorder. Let me collect Armenian leaders on my side and concentrate them in Thrace, and you collect Armenian leaders on your side and send them to the East to fight your enemies. If they kill, your enemies will have been destroyed; if the enemies kill, they will have destroyed our common threats. Then we could live in peace, because if they stay in their nation, we wouldn't have peace."

Chosroes agreed with this proposal, and all Armenian soldiers were transferred to foreign lands. This policy obviously generated discontent in Armenia and there were in fact riots led by Sahak Mamikonian and Sembat Bagratuni.

In 591, the treaty between Khosrow II and Maurice ceded most of Persarmenia to the Eastern Roman Empire.

Later history
The region was the focus of prolonged warfare in the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628. After the onset of the Muslim conquests and the Arab conquest of Armenia, only the western parts of Armenia remained in Byzantine hands, forming part of the theme of Armeniakon. Armenia remained dominated by the Arabs thereafter, and was ruled by a succession of Caliphate-appointed emirs as well as local princes.

The peace lasted just over a decade. In 602, in fact, the Roman army engaged in the Balkans to counter the invasions of Slavs and Avars, unhappy with Maurizio, turned to the imperial authority and, headed by the centurion Foca, took possession of the capital by appointing a new Emperor Foca; a few days later Maurizio and his family were killed. Cosroe II used the assassination of his benefactor as an excuse to start a new war against the Romans. In the early years of the war the Persians achieved unprecedented success. They were favored by the revolt of the Roman general Narsete against Foca and by the use by Cosroe of a pretender who claimed to be Theodosius, the son of Mauritius and the legitimate heir to the throne. In the following years the Persians gradually conquered the fortress cities of Mesopotamia one after the other. At the same time they inflicted a series of defeats on the Romans in Armenia by systematically subduing the Roman fortresses in the Caucasus. Phocas was killed in 610 by Heraclius, who came to power. Meanwhile the Persians completed their conquest of Mesopotamia and the Caucasus, and in the next ten years annexed Syria, Palestine, Egypt to their empire and devastated Anatolia. Meanwhile, the Avars and the Slavs took advantage of the situation to invade the Balkans, bringing the Roman Empire to the brink of collapse.

Heraclius attempted to rebuild his army and borrowed money from the Church to obtain the funds necessary to continue the war. In 622, Heraclius left Constantinople to form an army in Asia Minor and launch a new counter-offensive, which took on the characteristics of a Holy War. In 624 he invaded Armenia and put to flight a Persian army commanded by Cosroe in person at Ganzaca in Atropatene. Here he destroyed numerous Zoroastrian temples to avenge the looting of Jerusalem in 614 by the Persians. In 625 he defeated generals Shahrbaraz, Shahin and Shahraplakanalways in Armenia, and in the following years he obtained other victories. After a siege of Constantinople failed by Persians and Avars, Heraclius made an alliance with the Turks, who had taken advantage of the declining strength of the Persians to devastate their territories in the Caucasus. In late 627, Heraclius launched a winter offensive in Mesopotamia, where, despite the desertion of the Turkish contingent, he inflicted a decisive and overwhelming defeat on the Persians in the Battle of Nineveh. Humiliated by the series of defeats, Cosroe was killed in a conspiracy and was succeeded by his son Kavadh II, who signed a peace treaty with the Romans, agreeing to withdraw from all the occupied territories. Heraclius brought back the True Cross, deported to Persia by the Persians during the conquest of Jerusalem in 614, in the Holy City with a grandiose ceremony in 629.

Armenia was thus recovered by the Byzantines and then almost all lost again a few years later during the Arab invasions. Due to the reform of the Themes (designed by Heraclius or, alternatively, by one of his successors), the part of Armenia that remained Byzantine was reorganized in the new theme of Armeniakon. After seven centuries of history, the Roman province of Armenia was thus suppressed.
With the ebbing of the Caliphate's power and the fracturing of its outlying territories into autonomous statelets, the Byzantines were able to re-assert their influence over the Armenian principalities during the campaigns of John Kourkouas in the early 10th century. In the first half of the 11th century, under Basil II and his successors, most of Armenia came under direct Byzantine control, which lasted until the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, when all Armenia fell to the Seljuks.

Roman Christianity
The influence of Christianity was felt in the 1st century after Christ: Christianity was first introduced by the apostles Bartholomew and Jude Thaddeus. Thus both Saints are considered the patron saints of the Armenian Apostolic Church.

Apostle Bartholomew is said to have been executed in Albanopolis in Armenia. According to popular hagiography, the apostle was flayed alive and beheaded. According to other accounts he was crucified upside down (head downward) like St. Peter. He is said to have been martyred for having converted Polymius, the king of Armenia, to Christianity. Enraged by the monarch's conversion, and fearing a Roman backlash, king Polymius's brother, prince Astyages, ordered Bartholomew's torture and execution, which Bartholomew courageously endured. However, there are no records of any Armenian King of the Arsacid dynasty of Armenia with the name Polymius. Current scholarship indicates that Bartholomew more likely died in Kalyan in India, where there was an official named Polymius.

Armenia became the first country to establish Christianity as its state religion when, in an event traditionally dated to 301, Gregory the Illuminator convinced Tiridates III, the king of Armenia, to convert to Christianity.

As a consequence of Diocletian's victory over the Sassanids, all of Armenia was once again a vassal state of Rome by 299: Rome secured in this way a wide zone of cultural influence east of Anatolia, which led to a wide diffusion of Syriac Christianity from a center at Nisibis in the first decades of the 4th century, and to the eventual full Christianization of Armenia.

Before this, the dominant religion in Armenia was Zoroastrianism (promoted by the Parthian/Sassanid Empire) and to a smaller degree local Paganism. St Gregory and his son Aristaces were successful in the full Christianization of all Armenians in the first half of the 4th century, mainly after Roman emperor Constantine legalised Christianity in the Roman Empire in 313.

It is a well recognized historical fact that the Armenians were the first nation in the world to formally adhere to Christianity. This conversion was followed in the 4th and 5th centuries by a process of institutionalization and Armenization of Christianity in Armenia. Indeed, Gregory the Illuminator became the organizer of the Armenian Church hierarchy. From that time, the heads of the Armenian Church have been called Catholicos and still hold the same title.

St. Gregory chose as the site of the "Catholicosate" the capital city of Vagharshapat (actual Ejmiatsinin) in Armenia and built there the Etchmiadzin Cathedral as a vaulted basilica in 301-303 (Vahan Mamikonian, Roman governor of Armenia, in 480 ordered the dilapidated basilica to be replaced with a new cruciform church, still standing in the modern Armenia).

The continuous upheavals, which characterized the political scenes of Armenia in the next centuries, made the political power move to safer places often related to the Eastern Roman Empire. The Church center moved as well to different locations together with the political authority, ending in Byzantine Cilicia in the 13th century

Episcopal sees
Ancient episcopal sees of the Roman province of Armenia III listed in the Annuario Pontificio as titular sees:

Acilisene
Camachus
Citharizum
Theodosiopolis in Armenia

Defense and Army
We know that during the particular campaigns of Lucio Vero, after the occupation of the region (for which Lucio Vero and his brother Marco Aurelio obtained both titles of Armeniacus, respectively in 163 and 164), a strong Roman garrison was located in the new city of Kainepolis (today's Ečmiadzin 40 km north-east of Artaxata, the old Armenian capital).

Political and Economic Geography
The main cities were Arsamosata, Tigranocerta, Artaxata and Elegeia. Armenia is a predominantly desert region although the Caucasus chain is on the northern side. No vast rivers flow. The region is rich in plateaus where the Persians placed many of their camps and the Caspian gates, a sort of Persian limes. In Armenia there are no forests in fact precisely for this reason it was never exploited by the ancients and was neglected, the region took only a considerable importance for its wide desert spaces where Persian and then Sassanid cavalry became an unstoppable enemy.

History of Antiquity Kingdom of Armenia

The Kingdom of Armenia, also the Kingdom of Greater Armenia, or simply Greater Armenia (Armenian: Մեծ Հայք Mets Hayk; Latin: Armenia Maior), sometimes referred to as the Armenian Empire, was a monarchy in the Ancient Near East which existed from 321 BC to 428 AD. Its history is divided into successive reigns by three royal dynasties: Orontid (321 BC–200 BC), Artaxiad (189 BC–12 AD) and Arsacid (52–428).

The root of the kingdom lies in one of the satrapies of the Achaemenid Empire of Persia called Armenia (Satrapy of Armenia), which was formed from the territory of the Kingdom of Ararat (860 BC–590 BC) after it was conquered by the Median Empire in 590 BC. The satrapy became a kingdom in 321 BC during the reign of the Orontid dynasty after the conquest of Persia by Alexander the Great, which was then incorporated as one of the Hellenistic kingdoms of the Seleucid Empire.

Under the Seleucid Empire (312–63 BC), the Armenian throne was divided in two – Armenia Maior and Sophene – both of which passed to members of the Artaxiad dynasty in 189 BC. During the Roman Republic's eastern expansion, the Kingdom of Armenia, under Tigranes the Great, reached its peak, from 83 to 69 BC, after it reincorporated Sophene and conquered the remaining territories of the falling Seleucid Empire, effectively ending its existence and raising Armenia into an empire for a brief period, until it was itself conquered by Rome in 69 BC. The remaining Artaxiad kings ruled as clients of Rome until they were overthrown in 12 AD due to their possible allegiance to Rome's main rival in the region, Parthia.

During the Roman–Parthian Wars, the Arsacid dynasty of Armenia was founded when Tiridates I, a member of the Parthian Arsacid dynasty, was proclaimed King of Armenia in 52. Throughout most of its history during this period, Armenia was heavily contested between Rome and Parthia, and the Armenian nobility was divided among pro-Roman, pro-Parthian or neutrals. From 114 to 118, Armenia briefly became a province of the Roman Empire under Emperor Trajan. The Kingdom of Armenia often served as a client state or vassal at the frontier of the two large empires and their successors, the Byzantine and Sassanid empires. In 301, Tiridates III proclaimed Christianity as the state religion of Armenia, making the Armenian kingdom the first state to embrace Christianity officially.

During the Byzantine–Sasanian wars, Armenia was ultimately partitioned into Byzantine Armenia in 387 and Persian Armenia in 428.

History

Origins
The geographic Armenian Highlands, then known as the highlands of Ararat (Assyrian: Urartu), was originally inhabited by Proto-Armenian tribes which did not yet constitute a unitary state or nation. The highlands were first united by tribes in the vicinity of Lake Van into the Kingdom of Van (Urartian: Biainili). The kingdom competed with Assyria over supremacy in the highlands of Ararat and the Fertile Crescent.

Both kingdoms fell to Iranian invaders from the neighbouring East (Medes, followed by Achaemenid Persians) in the 6th century BC. Its territory was reorganized into a satrapy called Armenia (Old Persian: Armina, Elamite: Harminuya, Akkadian: Urashtu). The Orontid dynasty ruled as satraps of the Achaemenid Empire for three centuries until the empire's defeat against Alexander the Great's Macedonian Empire at the Battle of Gaugamela in 331 BC. After Alexander's death in 323 BC, a Macedonian general named Neoptolemus obtained Armenia until he died in 321 BC and the Orontids returned, not as satraps, but as kings.

Orontid Dynasty
Orontes III and the ruler of Lesser Armenia, Mithridates, recognized themselves independent, thus elevating the former Armenian satrapy into a kingdom, giving birth to the kingdoms of Armenia and Lesser Armenia. Orontes III also defeated the Thessalian commander Menon, who wanted to capture Sper's gold mines.

Weakened by the Seleucid Empire which succeeded the Macedonian Empire, the last Orontid king, Orontes IV, was overthrown in 200/201 BC and the kingdom was taken over by a commander of the Seleucid Empire, Artashes I, who is presumed to be related to the Orontid dynasty himself.

Artaxiad dynasty
The Seleucid Empire's influence over Armenia had weakened after it was defeated by the Romans in the Battle of Magnesia in 190 BC. A Hellenistic Armenian state was thus founded in the same year by Artaxias I alongside the Armenian kingdom of Sophene led by Zariadres. Artaxias seized Yervandashat, united the Armenian Highlands at the expense of neighboring tribes and founded the new royal capital of Artaxata near the Araxes River. According to Strabo and Plutarch, Hannibal Barca received hospitality at the Armenian court of Artaxias I. The authors add an apocryphal story of how Hannibal planned and supervised the building of Artaxata. The new city was laid on a strategic position at the juncture of trade routes that connected the Ancient Greek world with Bactria, India and the Black Sea which permitted the Armenians to prosper. Tigranes the Great saw an opportunity for expansion in the constant civil strife to the south. In 83 BC, at the invitation of one of the factions in the interminable civil wars, he entered Syria, and soon established himself as ruler of Syria—putting the Seleucid Empire virtually at an end—and ruled peacefully for 17 years. During the zenith of his rule, Tigranes the Great extended Armenia's territory outside of the Armenian Highland over parts of the Caucasus and the area that is now south-eastern Turkey, Iran, Syria and Lebanon, becoming one of the most powerful states in the Roman East.

Roman rule
Armenia came under the Ancient Roman sphere of influence in 66 BC, after the battle of Tigranocerta and the final defeat of Armenia's ally, Mithridates VI of Pontus. Mark Antony invaded and defeated the kingdom in 34 BC, but the Romans lost hegemony during the Final War of the Roman Republic in 32–30 BC. In 20 BC, Augustus negotiated a truce with the Parthians, making Armenia a buffer zone between the two major powers.

Augustus installed Tigranes V as king of Armenia in AD 6, but ruled with Erato of Armenia. The Romans then installed Mithridates of Armenia as client king. Mithridates was arrested by Caligula, but later restored by Claudius. Subsequently, Armenia was often a focus of contention between Rome and Parthia, with both major powers supporting opposing sovereigns and usurpers. The Parthians forced Armenia into submission in AD 37, but in AD 47 the Romans retook control of the kingdom. In AD 51 Armenia fell to an Iberian invasion sponsored by Parthia, led by Rhadamistus. Tigranes VI of Armenia ruled from AD 58, again installed by Roman support. The period of turmoil ends in AD 66, when Tiridates I of Armenia was crowned king of Armenia by Nero. For the remaining duration of the Armenian kingdom, Rome still considered it a client kingdom de jure, but the ruling dynasty was of Parthian extraction, and contemporary Roman writers thought that Nero had de facto yielded Armenia to the Parthians.

Arsacid dynasty
Under Nero, the Romans fought a campaign (55–63) against the Parthian Empire, which had invaded the Kingdom of Armenia, allied with the Romans. After gaining Armenia in 60, then losing it in 62, the Romans sent the Legio XV Apollinaris from Pannonia to Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo, legatus of Syria. In 63, strengthened further by the legions III Gallica, V Macedonica, X Fretensis and XXII, General Corbulo entered into the territories of Vologases I of Parthia, who then returned the Armenian kingdom to Tiridates, king Vologases I's brother.

Another campaign was led by Emperor Lucius Verus in 162–165, after Vologases IV of Parthia had invaded Armenia and installed his chief general on its throne. To counter the Parthian threat, Verus set out for the east. His army won significant victories and retook the capital. Sohaemus, a Roman citizen of Armenian heritage, was installed as the new client king. But during an epidemic within the Roman forces, Parthians retook most of their lost territory in 166. Sohaemus retreated to Syria, and the Arsacid's dynasty was restored to power over Armenia.

After the fall of the Arsacid dynasty in Persia, the succeeding Sasanian Empire aspired to reestablish Persian control. The Sassanid Persians occupied Armenia in 252. However, in 287, Tiridates III the Great was established King of Armenia by the Roman armies. After Gregory the Illuminator's spreading of Christianity in Armenia, Tiridates accepted Christianity and made it his kingdom's official religion. The traditional date for Armenia's conversion to Christianity is established at 301, preceding the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great's conversion and the Edict of Milan by a dozen years.

The disruption of the balance
After having, in 224, overthrown in Iran and in Mesopotamia the last king of the arsacid kings, the Sassanian Persian king Ardachîr I seeks to exterminate all the members of the defeated dynasty, task which is pursued by his son Shapur I. The king of Armenia Tiridate II, an Arsacid, thus finds himself the last of the dynasty and victoriously resists the Persians, even leaving the Romans to use his territory as a base for devastating attacks against the Media (Hamadan region, Iran) in 232 - 233.

Armenia is no longer neutral. Not only did it openly welcome Roman troops into its territory, which posed an unacceptable threat to Western Iran, but its arsacid king Tiridate had become, by force of circumstances, the sole legitimate claimant to the throne of the king of kings. Indeed, many Parthian lords, vassals of the Arsacids, refused outright to swear allegiance to the Sassanids whom they regard as usurpers, and rallied to Tiridate with the obvious aim of restoring the fallen dynasty.

The fate of Armenia and its king is sealed in 244 when, at the end of a new Perso-Roman war, the Roman emperor Philippe the Arab concludes peace with Shapur I: the Sassanid would henceforth have the hands free in Armenia, Rome pledging to no longer support Tiridate. In 251 or 252, on the death of Tiridates, Shapur I immediately occupied the kingdom, obtained the rallying of almost all of the local aristocracy, and placed his son Hormizd on the throne of Armenia. In the logic of Shapur (and perhaps the peace of 244), it is a return to traditional equilibrium: the king of Armenia must come from the dynasty of the king of kings, formerly the Arsacid Parthians, now the Sassanid Persians.

The Romans refuse to endorse this new fact. According to the Armenian chroniclers, the sons of Tiridates, the future Khosrov II and Tiridates III, still children, manage to escape the massacre of their family and find refuge in the Roman Empire, constituting in the long term a threat for the Sassanids. At the same time, the Romans concentrated troops in Syria, but Shapur attacked the first and destroyed them in 252, occupying a time in northern Syria and destroying Antioch, while his son Hormizd, from Armenia, ravaged the Cappadocia.

Christian Armenia
Armenia then becomes a vassal kingdom of the Sassanid Empire which implanted its centralized administration there and, no doubt, its state religion, Zoroastrian Mazdeism. The situation did not change until 287, when Khosrov returned from thirty-five years of exile in the vans of the Romans and was re-established on the throne of Armenia by Diocletian. A new Roman offensive led in 293 by Galère and Diocletian, with the support of the Armenians of Tiridate III, forced the king of the Sassanid kings Narsès to capitulate (peace of Nisibe). Tiridate IVsucceeded him in 298.

Initially, Tiridates IV undoubtedly endeavors to assert his authority, by fighting in particular against the Churches, the Mazdean clergy who can rightly pass for a relay of the Sassanids, but also against the Christians who gain influence under the conduct of their spiritual leader, the bishop Grégoire, known as Grégoire I the Illuminator. This policy of persecution of organized religions is in line with that of its Roman protectors who legislated against the Manicheans and are preparing to do so against the Christians.

But Tiridates changes his mind, no doubt to prevent his fragile regime from being regarded as a puppet of the Romans, in a country where nearly forty years of Persian domination have changed mentalities. In 301, at the very moment when Diocletian and his colleagues set off in their empire the worst anti-Christian persecution in history, Tiridates and his family converted to Christianity and made this religion the state religion of the kingdom, on the model of l Persian Empire which has Mazdism as the State religion.

Armenia thus becomes the first Christian state in history. This upheaval ensures Tiridates the support of a good part of the population and the aristocracy, but especially founds a new Armenian identity, quite distinct from the pagan Romans and the Mazdean Sassanids. The blessing of Bishop Gregory now gives Tiridates a new legitimacy: king by the grace of God rather than that of the Roman emperor, he now has less need to highlight his arsacid origins, which makes him more acceptable by the Sassanian Persians.

4th century
These political ulterior motives and the strategic need to maintain balanced relations between the two Roman and Persian giants as much as possible have strengthened the national character of the Church of Armenia. Tiridates and his successors maintained during the first half of the iv th century close relations with the Romans, but even when these go also to Christianity, Christian Armenia retains its specificity and does not line up on the Caesaropapism in force under Constantine and his successor Constance II.

Thus, the powerful Church of Armenia is led by a Catholicos (patriarch), not elected as among the Romans but hereditary. To succeed Gregory the Illuminator to the patriarchate his son Aristakes I st and Vertanes I st and his little son Houssik I st and his little son back Nerses I st.

Armenia remains very politically linked to the Roman Empire. According to Moses of Khorene, it is Constance II who appoints King Khosrov the Little, son of Tiridates, at the request of the Catholicos Vertanes, the assembly of bishops and nobles of Armenia. Khosrov the Little seeks however to get along with the Persians and, at his death, the Catholicos must once again ask for the explicit support of the Roman emperor to enthron Tigrane VII, son of Khosrov, while the Persians attempt a return offensive to subjugate the kingdom again.

Under Tigrane VII, relations were strained between the king and the Catholicos. Houssik, son and successor of Vertanès, is martyred with Bishop Daniel. The Persians took advantage of these dissensions and the failure of the Roman expedition of Julien against them in 363 to regain control for a time. But the Arsacid dynasty is restored, while the Church of Armenia is reinforced: in 365 a council of Armenian bishops is assembled in Ashtishat by the catholic Nersès to fix the rules of the national Church.

In 368, the Sassanid king of kings Shapur II occupied Georgia and Armenia without the Romans being able to react effectively. Finally, an agreement was reached under Theodosius I st in 384: the western part of the kingdom became a Roman province called Armenia Minor (Armenia Minor), and the eastern part a vassal kingdom of the Sassanids. When in 428 a revolt of the local nobility overthrew King Artaxias IV, the Sassanid Bahram V installed a governorin its place, thus putting an end to the existence of the kingdom of Armenia which had been founded in 190 BC. AD

It was at that time under the Catholicos Sahak I st, the cleric Mesrop created the Armenian alphabet, adapted to the language, which becomes a real liturgical language and a language of culture. He translates the Scriptures into Armenian, thereby strengthening the nation's Christian identity. We see the effect around 450, when the Sassanid Yezdegerd II vainly tries to reintroduce Mazdéism in the country.

In 387, the Kingdom of Armenia was split between the Eastern Roman Empire and the Persian Empire. Western Armenia first became a province of the Roman Empire under the name of Armenia Minor, and later Byzantine Armenia; Eastern Armenia remained a kingdom within Persia until, in 428, the local nobility overthrew the king, and the Sassanids installed a governor in his place, beginning the Marzpanate period over Persian Armenia. Those parts of historical Armenia remained firmly under Persian control until the Muslim conquest of Persia, while the Byzantine parts remained until being conquered, also by invading Arabic armies, in the 7th century. In 885, after years of Roman, Persian, and Arab rule, Armenia regained its independence under the Bagratuni dynasty.

Army

Under Tigranes the Great
The army of the Kingdom of Armenia reached its peak under the reign of Tigranes the Great. According to the author of Judith, his army included chariots and 12,000 cavalrymen, most likely heavy cavalry or cataphracts, a unit also commonly used by Seleucids and Parthians. His army consisted mainly of 120,000 infantrymen and 12,000 mounted archers, also an important feature of the Parthian army. Like the Seleucids, the bulk of Tigranes' army were foot soldiers. The Jewish historian Josephus talks of 500,000 men in total, including camp followers. These followers consisted of camels, donkeys, and mules used for baggage, sheep, cattle, and goats for food, said to be stocked in abundance for each man, and hoards of gold and silver. As a result, the marching Armenian army was listed as "a huge, irregular force, too many to count, like locusts or the dust of the earth", not unlike many other enormous Eastern armies of the time. The smaller Cappadocian, Graeco-Phoenician, and Nabataean armies were generally no match for the sheer number of soldiers, with the organized Roman army with its legions eventually posing a much greater challenge to the Armenians.

Note that the numbers given by Israelite historians of the time were probably exaggerated, considering the fact that the Hasmonean Jews lost the war against Tigranes.

"Plutarch wrote that the Armenian archers could kill from 200 meters with their deadly-accurate arrows. The Romans admired and respected the bravery and the warrior spirit of the Armenian Cavalry – the core of Tigran's Army. The Roman historian Sallustius Crispus wrote that the Armenian [Ayrudzi – lit. horsemen] Cavalry was "remarkable by the beauty of their horses and armor". Horses in Armenia, since ancient times were considered as the most important part and pride of the warrior. "

Ayrudzi
From ancient times in Armenia there existed "Azatavrear" cavalry which consisted of the Armenian elite. "Azatavrear" cavalry made up the main part of the Armenian king's court. In medieval times "Azatavrear" cavalry were collected from nobles (usually the youngest sons of Armenian lords), and were known as Ayrudzi, or "horsemen." During times of peace, Armenian cavalry were divided into small groups which took the roles of guarding the King and other Armenian lords, as well as their families. Some part of the Armenian cavalry force was always patrolling Armenian borders, under the command of an Armenian general (sparapet). The group of Armenian cavalry whose main mission was the protection of the Armenian king and his family consisted of 6000 heavily armored horsemen in the ancient period, and 3000 horsemen in the medieval period. During times of war, the number of Armenian cavalry would rise, with estimates ranging from 10,000 to at least 20,000 horsemen. Besides heavy cavalry, there was also light cavalry, which primarily consisted of mounted archers.

Legio I Armeniaca-Armenian First Legion
"Legio Armeniaca" translates from Latin as "Armenian Legion" and "prima" as "first". The Armenian First Legion was one of the later-period Roman imperial legions. This Legion was mentioned in the late-antique text known as Notitia Dignitatum. It is most likely that the Armenian First Legion was formed in the 2nd or 3rd century AD, in the western part of the Kingdom, with the mission to protect the lands of Armenia from intrusion. It might first have been the garrison of Armenian lands which had been under the control of the Roman Empire. The Armenian First Legion took part in the ill-fated Persian campaign of the emperor Julianus Apostata in 363.

Legio II Armeniaca-Armenian Second Legion
"Legio Armeniaca" translates from Latin as "Armenian Legion" and "Secunda" as "Second". Like the First legion, the Armenian Second Legion was one of the later-period Roman imperial legions. This legion is also mentioned in the Notitia Dignitatum. The Armenian Second Legion was thought to have been created around the end of the 3rd century or in the beginning of the 4th century. The Armenian Second Legion had a permanent camp in one of the Northern provinces of the Orient, and built a camp in Satala. The Armenian Second legion is mentioned in the year 360 AD as a part of the garrison of Bezabda (anciently called Phoencia) in upper Tigris. In Bezabde the Armenian Second Legion served together with the Legions Parthica and II Flavia. In 390 AD Bezabde was taken by the Persian army, and a terrible bloodbath ensued against the inhabitants and garrison. The legion seemed to have survived this battle, because it appears in Notitia Dignitatum, which was written in the 5th century.

Later on, the Armenian Second legion became a part of the Byzantine army.

Mythology and pre-Christian religion
The pre-Christian Armenian pantheon included:

Aramazd - Cognate of the Iranian Ahura Mazda (or Ormazd). Head of the pantheon, identified with Zeus in the interpretatio graeca.
Amanor and/or Vanatur - God of the Armenian new year, Navasard, at the end of July. His temple was located in Diyadin.
Anahit - Cognate of the Iranian Anahita. The goddess of fertility and birth, and daughter or wife of Aramazd, Anahit is identified with Artemis and Aphrodite. Temples dedicated to Anahit were established in Armavir, Artashat, Ashtishat.
Ara the Beautiful - a dying-and-rising god slain in a war against Semiramis.
Astghik - Cognate of the Semitic Ishtar. Fertility goddess and consort of Vahagn, sharing a temple with him at Derik. The holiday of Vardavar was originally in honor of Astghik.
Barsamin - God of sky and weather, probably derived from the Semitic god Baal Shamin.
Hayk - Legendary forefather of the Armenian people, archer, and slayer of the Titan Bel.
Mihr - Cognate with the Persian Mithra. God of the sun and light, son of Aramazd, the brother of Anahit and Nane. His center of worship was located in Bagaharich, and the temple of Garni was dedicated to him.
Nane - Possible cognate of the Sumerian Nanaya. Daughter of Aramazd, war and motherhood goddess. Her cult was related to Anahit, both of their temples located near each other in Gavar.
Tir or Tiur - God of wisdom, culture, science and studies, he also was an interpreter of dreams. He was the messenger of the gods and was associated with Apollo. Tir's temple was located near Artashat.
Tsovinar - Also called Nar, she was the goddess of rain, sea and water, though she was actually a fiery being who forced rain to fall.
Vahagn - Cognate of the Iranian Verethragna. The storm god and herculean dragon slayer. Derik housed the central temple to Vahagn.

During the 1st century AD, Christianity spread through Armenia due to (according to legend) the efforts of the apostles Bartholomew and Thaddeus. After persecutions by kings Sanatruk, Axidares, Khosrov I, and Tiridates III, Christianity was adopted as the state religion by Tiridates III after he was converted by Gregory the Illuminator. Armenia's adoption of Christianity as the state religion (the first country to do so) distinguished it from Parthian and Mazdaen influence.

Zoroastrianism
Until the late Parthian period, Armenia was a predominantly Zoroastrian-adhering land. With the advent of Christianity, both paganism and Zoroastrianism gradually started to diminish. The founder of the Arsacid branch in Armenia, Tiridates I was a Zoroastrian priest or magus. A noted episode which illustrates the observance by the Armenian Arsacids is the famous journey of Tiridates I to Rome in A.D. 65-66. With the adoption of Christianity in the early 4th century, Zoroastrianism's influence in the kingdom gradually started to decline.

Literature
Little is known about pre-Christian Armenian literature. Many literature pieces known to us were saved and then presented to us by Moses of Chorene. This is a pagan Armenian song, telling about the birth of Vahagn:

In travail were heaven and earth,
In travail, too, the purple sea,
The travail held in the sea the small red reed.

Through the hollow of the stalk came forth smoke,
Through the hollow of the stalk came forth flame,
And out of the flame a youth ran․

Fiery hair had he,
Ay, too, he had flaming beard,
And his eyes, they were as suns.

Arts
Christian tragedy Polyeucte, composed by French playwright Pierre Corneille and created in 1641 in Paris, is set in Melitene, Armenia, in Roman times, the iii th century AD, during the persecution of Christians by the Roman emperor Decius. Polyeucte, Armenian lord converted to Christianity, knows the fate of a martyr.

Language
Before the Armenian alphabet was created, Armenians used the Aramaic and Greek alphabets, the last of which had a great influence on the Armenian alphabet. The Armenian alphabet was created by Saint Mesrop Mashtots and Isaac of Armenia (Sahak Partev) in AD 405, primarily for a Bible translation into the Armenian language. Traditionally, the following phrase translated from Solomon's Book of Proverbs is said to be the first sentence to be written down in Armenian by Mashtots:

"To know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding."
— Book of Proverbs, 1:2.

By the 2nd century BC, according to Strabo, the inhabitants of Greater Armenia spoke the Armenian language, implying that modern Armenians descended from that population.

Capitals
Yervandashat – The ancient town sits upon an escarpment overlooking the junction of the Arax River and Akhurian River. According to Movses Kaghankatvatsi, Orontes IV founded Yervandashat to replace Armavir as his capital after Armavir had been left dry by a shift of the Arax. The archaeological site has not been subject of major research, but fortifications and some remains of palaces have been uncovered. Ancient Yervandashat was destroyed by the army of the Persian King Shapur II in the 360s.
Artashat – King Artashes I founded Artashat in 185 BC in the region of Vostan within the historical province of Ayrarat (Ararat), at the point where the Araks river was joined by the Metsamor river during the ancient era, near the heights of Khor Virap. The story of the foundation is given by the Armenian historian Movses Khorenatsi of the 5th century: "Artashes traveled to the location of the confluence of the Yeraskh and Metsamor [rivers] and taking a liking to the position of the hills (adjacent to Mount Ararat), he chose it as the location of his new city, naming it after himself." According to the accounts given by Greek historians Plutarch and Strabo, Artashat is said to have been chosen and developed on the advice of the Carthaginian general Hannibal. The city's strategic position in the Araks valley on the Silk Road soon made Artashat a centre of bustling economic activity and thriving international trade, linking Persia and Mesopotamia with the Caucasus and Asia Minor. Its economic wealth can be gauged in the numerous bathhouses, markets, workshops, and administrative buildings that sprang up during the reign of Artashes I. The city had its own treasury and customs. The amphitheatre of Artashat was built during the reign of king Artavasdes II (55–34 BC). The remains of the huge walls surrounding the city built by King Artashes I can still be found in the area. After losing its status as a capital, Artashat gradually lost its significance.
Tigranakert was founded by the Armenian emperor Tigranes the Great in the 1st century BC. Tigranakert was founded as the new capital of the Armenian Empire in order to be in a more central position within the boundaries of the expanding empire. Its population was 120,000 and it also had many temples and an amphitheater.
Vagharshapat – In the first half of the 1st century, during the reign of the Armenian Arshakuni king Vologases I (Vagharsh I) (117–144), the old town of Vardgesavan was renovated and renamed Vaghasrhapat (Վաղարշապատ), which still persists as the official appellation of the city. The original name, as preserved by Byzantine historian Procopius (Persian Wars), was Valashabad—"Valash/Balash city" named after king Balash/Valash/Valarsh of Armenia. The name evolved into its later form by the shift in the medial L into a Gh, which is common in Armenian language. Khorenatsi mentions that the town of Vardges was totally rebuilt and fenced by Vagharsh I, eventually becoming known as Noarakaghak (The New City) or Vagharshapat. The city served as a capital for the Ashakuni Kingdom of Armenia between 120–330 AD and remained the country's most important city until the end of the 4th century. When Christianity became the state religion of Armenia, Vagharshapat was eventually called Ejmiatsin (or Etchmiadzin), after the name of the Mother Cathedral. Starting in 301, the city became the spiritual centre of the Armenian nation, home to the Armenian Catholicosate, one of the oldest religious organizations in the world. Vagharshapat was home to one of the oldest schools established by Saint Mashtots and the home of the first manuscripts library in Armenia founded in 480 AD. Starting in the 6th century, the city slowly lost its importance—especially after the transfer of the seat of the Catholicosate to Dvin in 452—until the foundation of the Bagratid Kingdom of Armenia in 885. After the fall of the Bagratid dynasty in 1045, the city gradually became an insignificant place until 1441, when the seat of the Armenian Catholicosate was transferred from the Cilician town of Sis back to Etchmiadzin.
Dvin – The ancient city of Dvin was built by Khosrov III the Small in 335 on the site of an ancient settlement and fortress from the 3rd millennium BC. Since then the city had been used as the primary residence of the Armenian kings of the Arshakuni dynasty. Dvin had a population of about 100,000 citizens of various professions including arts and crafts, trade, fishing, etc. After the fall of the Armenian Kingdom in 428, Dvin became the residence of Sassanid-appointed marzpans (governors), Byzantine kouropalates and later Umayyad and Abbasid-appointed ostikans (governors), all of whom were of senior nakharar stock. In 640 Dvin was the center of the emirate of Armenia.

Political geography
The Kingdom of Armenia was bordered by Caucasian Albania in the east, Caucasian Iberia in the north, the Roman Empire in the west, and Parthia, later succeeded by Sassanian Empire, in the south. The border between Caucasian Iberia and the Kingdom of Armenia was the Kur river, which was also the border between Caucasian Albania and Kingdom of Armenia.

After 331 BC, Armenia was divided into Lesser Armenia (a region of the Kingdom of Pontus), the Kingdom of Armenia (corresponding to Armenia Major) and the Kingdom of Sophene. In 189 BC when Artashes I's reign began, many neighboring countries (Media, Caucasian Iberia, Seleucid Empire) exploiting the weakened state of the kingdom, conquered its remote regions. Strabo says that Artaxias I raided to the east and reunited Caspiane and Paytakaran, then raided to the north, defeated the Iberians, reuniting Gugark (Strabo also notes that Iberia recognized themselves as vassals of the Kingdom of Armenia at this time), to the west, reuniting Karin, Ekeghik and Derjan and to the south, where, after many battles with the Seleucid Empire, he reunited Tmorik. Artaxias I was not able to reunite Lesser Armenia, Corduene, and Sophene, something completed by his grandson Tigranes the Great. During Artaxias I's reign the Kingdom of Armenia covered 350,000 km2 (135,000 sq mi). At its peak, under Tigranes the Great, it covered 3,000,000 km2 (1,158,000 sq mi), incorporating, besides Armenia Major, Iberia, Albania, Cappadocia, Cilicia, Armenian Mesopotamia, Osroene, Adiabene, Syria, Assyria, Commagene, Sophene, Judea and Atropatene. Parthia and also some Arab tribes were vassals of Tigranes the Great. Lesser Armenia's area was 100,000 km2 (39,000 sq mi).

Provinces
The 15 provinces of the Kingdom of Armenia with their capitals are as follows:

Upper Armenia, 23,860 km2 (9,000 sq mi) (Garin)
Sophene; 18,890 km2 (7,000 sq mi) (Arsamosata)
Aghdznik; 17,532 km2 (7,000 sq mi) (Tigranakert)
Turuberan; 25,008 km2 (10,000 sq mi) (Manzikert)
Corduene; 14,707 km2 (6,000 sq mi) (Pinik)
Moxoene; 2,962 km2 (1,000 sq mi) (Moks)
Nor Shirakan; 11,010 km2 (4,000 sq mi) (Her)
Vaspurakan; 40,870 km2 (16,000 sq mi) (Van)
Syunik; 15,237 km2 (6,000 sq mi) (Baghaberd)
Artsakh; 11,528 km2 (4,000 sq mi) (Shusha)
Paytakaran; 21,000 km2 (8,000 sq mi) (Paytakaran)
Utik; 11,315 km2 (4,000 sq mi) (Partav)
Gugark; 16,765 km2 (6,000 sq mi) (Ardahan)
Tayk; 10,179 km2 (4,000 sq mi) (Olti)
Ayrarat; 40,105 km2 (15,000 sq mi) (Armavir)

Other Armenian regions:
Lesser Armenia; 100,000 km2 (39,000 sq mi) (Nikopolis)
Armenian Mesopotamia; 20,000 km2 (8,000 sq mi) (Edessa)