Some great changes were slowly taking place in the East as well as
in the West. These changes were to give a different aspect to the
history of future nations. As we have seen the Parthian Empire had
been overthrown; Persia proper regained her independence. The Parthian
branch of the Assacide dynasty in Armenia also came to an end after a
reign of almost six centuries (150 B.C.-432 A.D.). On the other hand
the Roman Empire was too large to be under one emperor; the leading
people of the empire were divided into two, the Greeks and the Latins.
The division of the empire into the eastern and western was not only
natural, but also desirable. The Greek city Byzantium was rebuilt
and honorably made the capital of the Eastern empire, and called
Constantinople[44] after the name of Emperor Constantine the Great
(about A.D. 328). This metropolis of the Eastern Empire soon became a
worthy rival of Rome, both in civil and ecclesiastical matters.
The above brief survey of these conflicting forces--and others which
will be mentioned in their order--show that they were naturally of
two kinds, namely, political and religious. Though we may make such a
division, and even admit, that politics can be divorced from religion,
yet we must confess that this has not been done in the East to this
present time. It may be, therefore, stated that Christianity, as a
religion, was, and is, one of the most powerful of the conflicting
forces in the East. It is true that its Founder is called the Prince of
Peace, and He was and is, and ever shall be, yet the very principles
of His religion uncompromisingly militate against the domestic, social
and political evils. The baser natures--many of them, even among the
so-called Christians--therefore, run to the sword to settle their
disputes.
The enforcement of the religion of Christ upon the millions by
Constantine or other emperors did not change their hearts. It is to
our credit to confess, that though the Armenians nationally accepted
Christianity, and no doubt it had taken a firm root in the hearts of
the most of the people, yet there were many Vasags that had clung to
their idols, and had not failed to give much trouble to the truly
patriotic followers of Christ. It was due to this lack of true
Christianity that increased troubles arose between the Greek and
Armenian Christians.
The Greeks feared and hated the Armenians, for the latter were in
alliance with the Persians when they invaded Greece; and later the
conquests of the distinguished monarchs of Armenia, like Tigranes the
Great and others, over the Greeks, recorded by their own historians in
a more exaggerated manner than by the Armenians themselves,[45] would
most naturally make them to foster such a deep rooted malice in their
hearts and cause them to wish for opportunities to avenge themselves.
We do not fail to find them doing so whenever an opportunity was
offered them.
Hardly would Armenia sound pleasantly to the ear of the Persian any
longer. Armenia had lived in peace with Persia for centuries. The
reason of these comparatively peaceful relations between these two
countries was two-fold; both the Armenians and Persians were Aryans and
co-religionists. But Armenia, as we have seen in the preceding chapter,
had apostatized from her former religion, Zoroastrianism, and forsaken
her devotion to Magism. The revival of Zoroastrian faith and its
enforcement upon the inhabitants of the country in Persia was insisted
upon by the founder of the Sassanian dynasty. In his charge to his son
and successor before his departure from this life Artaxerxes dilated on
the subject of religion, maintaining and enforcing it upon the Iran or
non-Iran to become worshipers of the Zoroastrian faith as a necessary
basis for the stability of the empire. His successors were found very
faithful and zealous in their endeavors to execute their master’s
orders. In Armenia, however, the fire-temples and the temples of the
leading deities were swept out of existence, and Christian churches
and schools were established all over the country. Zoroastrianism had
received such a blow from the hand of King Jesus that it had fallen in
pieces, like Dagon of Ashdod, before the ark of the Lord in the days
of old, and now seven hundred Magi and an immense army of the Persians
could not gather its fragments or keep the fires unquenched on its
altars in Armenia.
The establishment of a Christian empire, in the West by the Greeks,
would most naturally force upon the Persians the idea that these two
nations now united by a common faith will be their formidable enemies.
But how naturally do the heathen think, and how unnaturally do the
so-called Christians act, is shown by the succeeding events of the
conflicting forces in Western Asia. It was perfectly natural for the
Persians to think, that a common religion or faith should produce
a harmonious relation between, and a united action of, these two
nations. Accordingly did the Persians look upon the Armenians with the
profoundest suspicion and dealt towards them with relentless cruelty.
We have made passing reference to one other disturbing cause, namely,
some of the nobility in Armenia, unfortunately not being in full
sympathy with the faith of the majority, did ignobly act by uniting
with the Persian hordes (whether with a mercenary object in view or
with a blind zeal for the restoration of the abolished Zoroastrianism),
thus aggravating the misery of their own people and causing much
bloodshed in the country. Such persons are found in all ages and among
all nations, but fortunately have not been many.
It will be impossible, in a small work like this to enumerate all the
agencies, the internal (and not less infernal), and the external and
occasional causes which precipitated the country into indescribable
misery. However, we have endeavored to review some of these facts,
which, the reader bearing in mind, will have the key to unlock the
mystery of the Armenian troubles and miseries.
After the political existence of Armenia was brought to an end, the
country was divided between the Eastern Empire and Persia, the former
having the western part of the country, and the eastern part being
occupied by the latter. The usurpers of Armenia tried to govern their
respective possessions by various methods, but they succeeded better
when they had native rulers, or princes had their contingent forces
under them. Whenever their respective sovereigns called upon them
to assist in their wars, they responded with readiness. There was,
however, this trouble in either province: the ever-ready endeavor
on the one hand to bring the independent Armenian church under the
influence of the Greek Church; and in the Persian province of Armenia,
under some fanatic rulers, who attempted to apostatize them from
their chosen faith; otherwise the Armenians seemed to have enjoyed a
tolerable freedom. This form of government lasted until new actors and
more conflicting forces began to appear on the stage.
A new and a more formidable force than Zoroastrianism made its
appearance in the form of a religion in the East. Western Asia seems
to have been made for a theater and almost all the great actors in
the annals of the dramatic history of the world enacted their _roles_
there. Towards the close of the sixth century the sunny and sandy
plains of Arabia became the home of a male child who was to be a
hero, a warrior, a law-giver, and the founder of a new religion which
shaped the destiny of millions of human beings and flooded many a
country with the blood of its inhabitants. “Mohammed, half imposter,
half enthusiast, enunciated a doctrine, and by decrees worked out a
religion, which proved capable of uniting in one the scattered tribes
of the Arabian desert, while at the same time it inspired them with a
confidence, a contempt for death, and a fanatic valor, that rendered
them irresistible by the surrounding nations.”[46] This self-made and
self-called apostle of Arabia, Mohammed, had the greatest difficulty
in finding few adherents in his native city, Mecca,[47] he found the
opposition to his claims too great and his life in danger and fled to
Medina, where he received a welcome. At the head of his adherents he
commenced to attack unawares wayfaring merchants on their way from the
northern countries; of course, seeing that these merchants are of his
former opponents. The plunder and the booty taken from the robbed or
conquered were freely distributed among his followers. This surely was
a great inducement to the pillage-loving and war-delighting Arabs to
swell the army of Mohammed. His followers have been doing the same ever
since, unless restrained by a superior force. Arabia, Palestine, Syria,
Mesopotamia, and Persia, one after the other, within a comparatively
short time, fell under the sway of the followers of Mohammed.
Bagdad was made the capital of the successors, or Caliphs of Mohammed,
from whence the hordes of Arabs or Saracens--so were they called by
the western writers--spread death and destruction east, west, and
north. The first Saracenic invasion into Armenia took place during the
caliphate of Omar (A.D. 640), under the generalship of Abdurahman,
who marched through Assyria and entered Armenia unopposed. Diran
Mamiganian with some difficulty mustered a small force hardly as large
as one-third of that of the enemy, but he made a noble defense of his
country against the new enemy of the home and religion. Alas! in the
little army of Diran there was another like Vasag, a man by the name
Sahurr, who hastened the defeat and the annihilation of noble Diran’s
little force; the fire and the sword of the enemy soon swept the
country. Abdurahman returned to Bagdad with 35,000 Armenian captives.
The Saracenic policy was quite different from that of the Persians.
The latter were not so intensely cruel, and were anxious to unify the
two peoples by the enforcement of their religion upon the Armenians.
But the Saracens were the very prototype of the Turks in cruelty and
in oppression. They kept on their regular incursions and inroads into
the country at short intervals, and spread death and destruction, and
carried many away as captives or hostages; these captives and hostages
were often forced to become Mohammedans, or they were massacred. A
picture drawn by the wildest imagination will fall far below the
suffering of the people and the atrocities of the followers of
Mohammed. The Armenians were often willing to let everything else go if
they were left with their preferred faith, the religion of Christ. Even
then they were not left alone. They often, compelled to do so, took
arms to defend their religion and rights and perished, sword in hand.
Thus it was and is since the introduction of Christianity into Armenia:
“The history of Armenia presents but a melancholy picture to the
friend of humanity. Rapacious neighbors, the enemies of Christianity,
found a theater for their unheard-of cruelties and oppressions in that
beauteous land, the inhabitants of which were equally exposed to the
outrages of Paganism and Islam.”
The condition of the provinces of Armenia governed by the Greeks was
hardly better. The Saracens were pushing their way northward and
westward. The Greeks were becoming unbearable on account of their
prejudices and persecutions occasioned by such comparatively trifling
differences from the Greek Church, in the rituals and ceremonies
of the Armenian Church. The state of things, indeed, was in a most
deplorable condition.
The Armenians were subdued and ruled over with a rod of iron, by the
Saracens, but they were by no means completely conquered or crushed.
The love for independence and self government was still rife in them.
They made several attempts at different times to revolt. Their attempts
failed and they paid dearly for them. But towards the middle of the
ninth century the reign of the Caliphs of Bagdad was weakened by
dissensions. A prince of the Pagradit family had proved himself very
prudent as a governor of Armenia, so much so that he had received from
the Caliph the title of “Prince of Princes,” in 859, and in 885 he was
crowned as King of Armenia. Ashdod I the King of Armenia was the first
of the Pagradit (Pagradeonian) dynasty.
The Pagradit family was old, influential and rich, according to our
Herodotus, Moses of Khoren, King H’rache brought a small colony of the
Hebrews from Judea when he returned with the armies of Nebuchadnezzar
in B.C. 597,[48] and a prince by the name Shampat was the head of
this Pagradit family. This dynasty lasted only from 885-1045, and had
a stormy time, yet it shows what a grand and glorious period it must
have been. Hundreds of churches in the city of Ani and its suburbs,
magnificent castles, palaces, forts and numerous defenses of the city
and throughout the country, though to-day in ruins, eloquently declare
the glory of the Pagradit dynasty of Armenia in the middle ages.
There is something marvelous in the annals of the Armenian history.
Though they are surrounded by hostile and uncivilized nations and with
such internal and infernal dissensions and contentions, yet the spirit
of bravery, courage and unconquerable love of liberty, as it were,
sprang up from the very ashes and the dust of the burnt and ruined
cities and towns; yea, even from the carcass-covered and blood-drenched
soil of Armenia. Thus it was that during this dynasty a marvelous
civilization flourished amid the savage and barbarous nations, and
this dynasty would have maintained its independence to the present had
the rulers found any sympathy or toleration in the western Christian
nations.
It was in the period of this dynasty that the Mongolian Tatar tribes,
who were scattered over the plains and table-lands of central and
northern Asia, began to move westward in search of plunder and
pasture-lands. These tribes had distinctive names in their own country,
but after leaving that they began to be denominated by the names of
their leaders, like Seljukians, after Seljuk; Othmanlis or Ostmanlis,
after Othman or Osman. They were pastoral in their occupations; warlike
in disposition; rapacious and predatory in their habits; nomadic in
their mode of life, and surely pagans in practice of religion. They
first settled in Persia, and there they came in contact with the
religion of Mohammed. They accepted it and entered the Mohammedan
army. They excelled the Arabs in enthusiasm, in intolerance, and
cruelty, especially upon the Christians. Indeed, the entry of the
Mongolian hordes, or the Turks into Western Asia was and still is the
worst of all evils and the severest of all the calamities that ever was
inflicted upon the Armenians or any other Christian nation in western
Asia.
But the downfall of that dynasty which had maintained its existence
over a century and a half was not brought about by the hands of the
merciless Arabs, nor even by those of the barbarous Turks, though
cruel and savage they were. In those days, they did not often do
with treachery what they could not with bravery. Even the Turks were
somewhat more honest than they are now.
Cakig,[49] the last king of this dynasty, had made himself both popular
and beloved on account of his just and wise administration of the
government. The Greek Emperor, Monamaches, demanded from Cakig for some
pretense the surrender of the Capital Ani. Cakig’s reply to the Emperor
was “I can never be prevailed upon quietly to relinquish my paternal
inheritance to any individual.” Hereupon the emperor sent a large force
against the king; however, the troops were defeated. He again tried
by force to accomplish his object, but his attempt was unsuccessful;
he then entered into an alliance with the Mohammedan governor of the
districts bordering on the provinces of Cakig to ruin the latter; but
this also proved to be a failure. Then the emperor pretended to be
appeased and entered into friendship, inviting the king on a visit to
Constantinople. Cakig doubted the apparent friendship and the sincerity
of the emperor, but alas, some of his chiefs who had conspired against
him and were sharers of the guilt of the emperor prevailed upon him.
Confiding in the solemn assurances of the emperor, and in compliance
with the requests of his chiefs, he went to Constantinople. First he
was exiled by this perfidious emperor to an island, then to Asia Minor.
This dethroned king, deprived of his rightful crown and scepter and
paternal inheritance, after a period of thirty-five years of exile, was
assassinated by the Greeks.
While King Cakig was an exile the Greeks took possession of the
capital, the City of Ani, and a large territory. The Seljukian Turks,
who had settled themselves in Persia, were increasing in number and
in power, finding the country in a defenseless condition, invaded
Armenia. At this first incursion they desolated twenty-four provinces;
at their second attack ruined many cities and towns and carried an
immense number of the inhabitants into captivity. In the third, they
laid siege to the city of Arzu, where many had taken refuge, it being a
walled city. The inhabitants made a desperate resistance, but the enemy
was too strong, and the Armenians, too fatigued to fight any longer,
surrendered. The Seljukian Turks, after having taken possession of the
city, displayed a barbarism which was a true example and an equal to
those of later cruelties of the Mongolian Tatars. Of the one hundred
and fifty thousand inhabitants and those who had taken refuge in the
city, some were butchered in cold blood, some were roasted to death,
and the rest carried into captivity. This doleful calamity, one of
many, took place in the year of our Lord, 1049.
Several times during every year, the Seljukian Turks and Tatars
repeated their incursions, devastated and plundered the country, and
indiscriminately massacred the people or enslaved them. Togrul Beg, for
fourteen years, before he went to meet the Judge of Nations, tormented,
tortured and butchered the Christian Armenians, and dyed the land of
Ararat crimson with the blood of her inhabitants. These persecutions
and massacres compelled the people to migrate into safer districts.
Some of the Armenian princes who were assuming royal titles, instead
of uniting their forces against a common enemy, fell prey to the foe,
or exchanged their vast territories with the Greek emperor for other
provinces. Thus King Sennacherib transferred his immense estates of
Vaspuragian and took instead of them the city of Sebastea (now Sivas)
and the country about it, extending to the banks of the Euphrates on
the east.
The Armenians were rapidly increasing in the provinces of Cappadocia
and Cilicia on account of the frequent invasions and incursions of
the Seljukian Turks. Alp Arslan, the nephew of Togrul Beg, succeeded
him 1063. In the following year, Arp Arslan (valiant lion) invaded
Armenia, laid siege to the royal city of Ami, and took it. “It is
impossible to describe the destruction and slaughter wrought by the
hands of these barbarians, the blood of thousands and ten thousands
dyed the waters of Aphour (the river that runs through the city), and
the magnificent buildings were set on fire, and numerous bodies, the
carcasses, were covered under the ashes and ruins.”[50] Arp Arslan
invaded Armenia, again, in battle against the Greeks and captured
emperor Romanus Diogenes (1071) and wrested the entire country from
the Greeks. His fearful career came to an end by the dagger of a
captive enemy in the following year in Turkestan. His son, Malick
Shah, succeeded him, and extended the empire from the shores of the
Mediterranean on the west to the borders of China on the east. “In
religion Seljukian sovereigns surpassed the other moslems of their age
in fierce intolerance, and thereby inadvertently provoked the famous
Crusades of the western nations. Upon wresting Jerusalem for a time
from the dominion of the Egyptian Caliphs, they visited with such
hardships the resident and pilgrim Christians, that Europe armed for
their deliverance from oppression.”[51]
Many of the Armenians, driven by these powerful invaders and
oppressors, had made their way into Cappadocia and Cilicia, and both
in the plains and also in the Tauros Mountain districts they formed
a strong colony. A young man, who was a relative and a companion with
two others, of the unfortunate King Cakig, had made his escape from the
plans of the assassins who intended to kill these also after they had
done away with the king, found refuge in the mountains. This man, whose
name was Reuben, was a center of attraction among the Armenians, a man
of warlike disposition and personal prowess, and bent on vengeance.
He resided with his son Constantine in Cilicia; his condition must
have been very much like that of David when he was a fugitive from the
face of Saul. Reuben cautiously avoided conflicts with the Greeks when
he was not sure of success, but such contests that he had with them
he was invariably victorious. He attacked and wrested the fortress
of Parzherpert (lofty fort), and from this time (A.D. 1080) he
styled himself Reuben the First, assuming independent reign over the
Armenians, who were increasing year by year. Thus began the Reubenian
dynasty of the Armenians in Cilicia.
It was during the reign of Constantine, the son and successor of Reuben
I, that the immense army of the Crusaders for the first time marched
into Western Asia, took the city of Nice and various other places, and
laid siege to Antioch. But a terrible famine broke out in their camp.
When Constantine and his chiefs were informed of the condition of
the Crusaders, he sent an abundance of provisions to the army of the
defenders of the Cross. This last dynasty of the Armenians in Cilicia
covers a period of almost three centuries. It was by no means in a
favorable condition, while Western Asia was in a fearful turmoil and
agitation, the conflicting forces by no means disappearing.
The Seljukian Turks, after losing their capital, Nice, made Iconium
(which over ten centuries before had listened to the famous
missionaries, Paul and Barnabas, tell the story of the Cross) their
capital, and made it resound with the “ezzen” of the “Muezzin” from
the numerous minarets. It became a source of great trouble to the
Armenians. The Greeks, inflamed with like hatred and malice as before,
were more or less in constant conflict with them. The Armenians,
over-exultant on account of the presence of the Christian forces of the
Western nations in the East, were willing to enlist in aid of their
cause by entering into an alliance with them, but by doing so they
intensified the jealousy and hatred of the Greeks and the wrathful
cruelty of the Turks. Moreover, the suspicions of some that these
foreigners were anxious to bring the Armenian church under the control
of the Pope of Rome were sustained by the facts revealed in due time.
It may be interesting to give a sample of the zeal of the Armenians in
their effort to assist the Crusaders and the consequences: King Leo I
of Cilicia was in an alliance with the Latin princes of Antioch. The
emperor of Constantinople was bent on recovering that famous city from
the Crusaders. Consequently to accomplish his purpose he marched on to
Cilicia with a large army. The emperor and his generals seem to have
been strategists and good warriors. They wrested the city of Antioch
and reduced many Cilician provinces and took Leo and his two sons,
Reuben and Toros, captives and carried them to Constantinople (1136).
The cruel Greeks, after tormenting and torturing their captives,
deprived the crown-prince, Reuben, of his eye-sight, then, still not
satisfied, they put him to death in the presence of his father, the
king. This barbarity so affected him that he died heart-broken in his
dungeon (1141). The history of Armenia presents a melancholy picture
to the friend of humanity and Christianity; especially when you find
some so-called Christians worse than pagans, you still feel thankful
that they are at least nominally Christians; what would have happened
if they were heathen? Arp Arslan did not treat Emperor Romanus in that
manner, because he was not a Greek Christian.
A new tremendous army of the Mongolians, under the command of Genghis
Khan, made its appearance in Western Asia; and spread all over Persia,
Armenia, Caucasus, Russia, and part of Asia Minor destruction,
devastation, and death; committing wholesale massacres, consuming the
cities and towns by fire, and carrying away hundreds and thousands
into captivity. “Seven years in succession was the conqueror (Genghis
Khan) busy in the work of destruction, pillage, and subjugation, and
extended his ravages to the banks of the Dnieper.” Armenia has been,
over and over, inundated with the blood of her inhabitants, enriched
with the carcasses of her people upon her face; her beautiful and
bright sky was often rendered dark by the smoke of the conflagrations
of her immense cities and numerous towns, kindled by her enemies; her
fair sons and graceful daughters were torn away from her maternal
bosom, carried into captivity and sold for slaves; her magnificent
churches and monasteries were converted into mosques and “tekes.” Yet
the “The House of Togarmah” marches on through these tremendous seas
of injustice, oppression, persecution, cruelty, and bloodshed, from
a remote antiquity to the end of the fourteenth century of our era,
lifting up the old, centuries-old flag of liberty, torn to pieces and
ready to fall into an irreparable dissolution.
Toros, the son of the unfortunate King Leo I, effected his escape
from the Greek army and returned to Cilicia (1145). He gathered about
him a nucleus and gradually recovered Cilicia from the Greeks and
after a reign of twenty-three years, he died in peace (1168). Reuben
II succeeded his uncle, Mileh, and reigned until his retirement in
1185, and his brother Leo II followed him. It was during the reign
of Leo II that Saladin, the sultan of Egypt, captured Jerusalem from
the Crusaders (1187), a terrible slaughter of the Christians had been
committed by the defender of the Mohammedan faith, which caused the
western nations to call for the third crusade, headed by Frederick I,
surnamed Barbarossa, a German emperor of Rome. He marched with his army
opposed by the Greek emperor and the sultan of Iconium. From the latter
place he sent a letter to Leo II, asking his assistance and telling of
his need of supplies. Leo, Catholicos and Bishop Nerses, with abundant
provisions, set out to meet him. But they did not have the pleasure of
seeing him; for he was drowned while crossing a stream. What a pity! He
was going to fight in defense of the Oriental Christians, not to put
a crown on Saladin’s head, nor a wreath on his tomb; he was not going
to offer his unsought-for friendship to the bloodthirsty followers of
Mohammed, neither was he going to encourage them to massacre the lowly
followers of the lowly Nazarene. Yet he was drowned. Surely “God moves
in a mysterious way His wonders to perform.” We do not question His
wisdom nor His goodness.
No doubt the object of the popes, who urged the Western sovereigns
to raise crusades against the Mohammedans, and kept them engaged in
this unsuccessful enterprise for a long time at the expense of immense
wealth and the sacrifice of millions of human lives, was two-fold; to
exercise their sublunary power over these potentates, and to further
their influence over other Christian nations in the East. But they
failed in both of these purposes. There came a time when the popes had
no influence over the kings of Europe. And the Crusaders in the East
rendered their names detestable forever, both to Christians and to
non-Christians.
“In 1204 A.D., the Capital (Constantinople) was captured by the
Crusaders, whose conduct fixed an indelible stain upon the name of
the Franks throughout the East, especially as it is contrasted with
that of the Mohammedans, who, a few years before, had conquered
Jerusalem. When Saladin entered the latter city the church of the
Holy Sepulchre was respected, and the conquered Christians remained
in possession of their property; no confiscations were made of the
wealth of the non-combatants. But the vaunted chivalry of the Papal
church plundered a Christian city without remorse, desecrated its
shrines, and maltreated its inhabitants, while the profane cry of
‘God Wills It,’ was raised to excite each other to act the part of
brigands and debauchees. Sacred plate, golden images of saints,
and silver candelabra from the altars; bronze statues of heathen
idols and heroes, precious works of Hellenic art; crowns, coronets,
thrones, vessels of gold and silver; ornaments of diamonds, pearls,
and precious stones from the imperial treasury and the palaces of the
nobles; jewelry and precious metals from the shops of the goldsmiths;
silks, velvets and brocaded tissues from the warehouses of the
merchants, together with coined money, were accumulated in vast heaps
as spoils to be divided by the victors. A few of the crusading clergy
endeavored to moderate the fury which the bigoted prejudices of the
Latin Church had instilled into the minds of the soldiery against the
Greeks, but many priests were as forward as the most abandoned of the
troops in robbing the temples of a kindred faith.”[52]
Our Saviour’s words were literally fulfilled; with what measure the
Greeks so often had measured and dealt with the Armenian, it was meted
to them by the hands of the Crusaders; yet such a conduct of the
Crusaders with the Christian, and undoubtedly a conduct a good deal
worse than this towards Mohammedans, accounts for the determination
and fury of the latter against the Christians. The reply of Meleck
Nasr Mohmud, the Egyptian Sultan, to an application of the Armenian
king Leo V, for a treaty of peace was the following: “I will never make
peace with you until you promise on oath not to hold any correspondence
or communication with Western nations.” Often did the Mohammedan
powers imagine that the Armenians had again stirred up the Western
nations, that they were marching against them in greater forces than
ever before, and then they would attack the cities and towns of the
Armenians and commit all manner of atrocities, thinking that that might
be their last opportunity.
After the withdrawal of the Western nations--or rather their being
driven out from the East--in full satisfaction of their complete
failure, either to maintain their position or ameliorate the oppressed
condition of the Oriental Christians under the Mohammedans, the
latter had first little difficulty in destroying the independence of
the Armenians in Cilicia. By various incursions of the Mohammedans
of Egypt into Cilicia, the Armenians were reduced in strength and in
numbers; finally a vast army of the enemy marched against them. Those
missionary soldiers of Mohammed, indeed brutes in character and nature,
though clad in clayey garments of human forms, spread themselves all
over the country. No city, town, or village, or building of any value,
whether church, monastery or dwelling, and no human being of any age
or either sex that fell into their hands, was spared; they slaughtered
every human being and burnt to ashes every building or razed it to
the ground. In the execution of their unfortunate victims they did not
leave any mode of torture untried. “The deceitful above all things
and desperately wicked heart” of a depraved human creature could not
have suggested any other method of torment and torture that these
Mohammedans did not devise and experiment upon their captives. The
Turks of to-day must have been studying their predecessors in faith
and practice. King Leo VI and the garrison surrendered on condition
that their lives would be spared; the Egyptian general promised this
on oath; Leo was fettered, and with his family carried to Cairo in the
eleventh year of his reign (A.D. 1375).
The king and family, after serving a period of imprisonment at Cairo,
were freed by the mediation and valuable presents of the King of Spain.
Leo with his queen and daughter, went to Jerusalem; there he left them
at their own request, then visited the European countries. On the 19th
of November, A.D. 1393, he ended his mortal career in Paris. “Leo King
of Armenia, was of a small stature, but of intelligent expression and
well-formed features. His body was carried to the tomb clothed in royal
robes of white, according to the custom of Armenia, with an open crown
upon his head and a golden scepter in his hand. He lay in state upon
an open bier hung with white and surrounded by the officers of his
household, clothed, all of them, in white robes. He was buried by the
high altar of the Church of the Celestine.”