The ruins of this city are seen at a place called Ardachar, or, as it is
more frequently called in the East, Ardechier; sometimes Ardesh. The
city rose above the plain with fortress, palaces, and temples; and two
more splendid than the rest, one dedicated to Anaites or Armatea, the
other, a magnificent structure to Apollo. Statues were raised in all.
Artaxata was the capital of Armenia, and the residence of the Armenian
kings. It was situate on a plain, upon an elbow of the Araxes, which
formed a peninsula, and surrounded the town, except on the side of the
isthmus. This isthmus was defended by a broad ditch and rampart.
It was built by Artaxias in consequence of Hannibal's having recommended
the spot as a fit place for the king's capital; and there Artaxias'
successors resided for many generations.
Lucullus having defeated the Armenians, under their king Tigranes, did
not venture to lay siege to this place, because he considered it
impregnable. The gates were, however, thrown open to the Roman general
Corbulo, but the city itself was burnt and razed. It was afterwards
called Neronia, in compliment to the emperor Nero, who commanded
Tiridates to rebuild it. A few families, of the poorest order of
people, are now the sole occupants of this once famous city.
"On reaching the remains of Ardisher," says Sir Robert Ker Porter, "I
saw the earth covered to an immense extent, and on every side, with that
sort of irregular hillocks, which are formed by Time over piles of
ruins. These, with long dyke-like ridges, evidently by the same
venerable architect, and materials connecting them in parts, told me at
once I was entering the confines of a city, now no more. It is not in
language to describe the effect on the mind in visiting one of these
places. The space over which the eye wanders, all marked with the
memorials of the past, but where no pillar or dome, nor household wall
of any kind, however fallen, yet remains to give a feeling of some
present existence of the place, even by a progress in decay. All here is
finished; buried under heaps of earth; the graves, not of the people
above, but of their houses, temples, and palaces; all lying in
death-like entombment. At Anni I found myself surrounded by a superb
monument of Armenian greatness; at Ardechier I stood over its grave. Go
where one will for lessons of Time's revolutions, the brevity of human
life, the nothingness of man's ambition, they nowhere can strike upon
the heart like a single glance cast on one of these motionless
life-deserted 'cities of the silent[45].'"