ANI, AND THE ARMENIAN KINGDOM OF THE MIDDLE AGES
In Europe we may find examples of mediæval towns from which the tide
of life has long since receded, and which have been preserved almost
intact to the present day. Less fortune attends the footsteps of the
traveller in Armenia, until he arrives before the walls and towers of
the city on the Arpa Chai. It is perhaps to the complete desolation
of the neighbourhood that is due this welcome surprise. No settlement
has arisen in the immediate vicinity to despoil these architectural
remains. Favoured by the dryness of the Armenian climate, the pink
volcanic stone displays all the freshness of the day when it was
fashioned by the mason's tool. Even lichen has failed to effect
much hold upon its surface, while our persistent ivies and sweet,
irresistible wallflowers have not adventured into these sunny and
treeless plains. We admire these buildings in much the same state
and condition as when they delighted the eyes of Armenian monarchs
nine centuries ago. Such a site would in Western lands be at least
occupied by a small town or village; the solitude of Ani is not shared
by any such presence; and the mood engendered by the spectacle of her
many noble monuments is not disturbed by the contrast of commonplace
successors or of miserable tenements, clinging to the creations of
a culture that has disappeared.
The impression of the ancient city which is perhaps likely to prove
most permanent is due to the aspect from without of that long row of
double walls with their even masonry and graceful towers at intervals
(Fig. 70, p. 369). How well they are seen from the floor of this plain
without limits; how strange they look among surroundings which scarcely
display a trace of man! When we reflect that we are face to face with
the capital of a kingdom, towards which the roads converged from every
direction, and which was situated in the midst of a fertile province,
famous for the production of corn, we are the more affected by the
bareness and the loneliness of the countryside, which is only traversed
here and there by a few vague tracks. Years upon years have elapsed
since district and city throbbed with the pulse of human life. Yet
if the Present be quite voiceless, the Past is doubly eloquent;
and by reason not only of these many memorials, with their countless
inscriptions, but also happily because of the comparative richness of
the material which has been preserved in literature. In the case of
many an old Armenian city, of which we shall visit the scanty remains,
we have to deplore the broken skein of History. Ani has been better
treated both by Time and by written records; and the dynasty which
produced her splendour still lives in the lifelike narrative of the
most attractive of the Armenian writers of that age. [265]
In the ninth century of our era the plains and mountains of Armenia
were divided between the two great contemporary Powers which held
sway in the East. The western portion of the country formed a part
of the Roman Empire; while that on the east, comprising by far
the largest and most populous area, was subject to the caliphs at
Baghdad. The span of this single century is sufficient to include
the full splendour and the decay and incipient disruption of the
caliphate. At its commencement Harun-al-Rashid (786-809) was real
master of vast dominions--a personality round which the romance of
the age collected to adorn the literature of all times. Before its
close many of these possessions had become parcelled out among petty
dynasties, whose titular overlord--a Mutaz (866-869), a Muhtadi
(869-870), a Mutamid (870-892)--was scarcely better than a puppet
in the hands of his Turkish bodyguard. Such was the period and such
the political environment in which the Armenian dynasty of the Middle
Ages rose by successive steps to the position of Kings of Armenia--a
rank which was recognised by their co-religionists, the Greek Cæsars,
but which was conferred or confirmed by the Commander of the Faithful,
within whose realm their dominions lay. [266]
The native institutions of the Armenian people were not unfavourable to
such a development. At the present day they cannot be said to possess
a class of nobles, and they are devoid of natural leaders. But in the
ninth century their councils were governed by a strong territorial
nobility, a relic of the period when they possessed their own
independent kings of Arsakid descent. The Arsakid dynasty had struggled
on into the fifth century, when it succumbed to the Sasanian monarchy
of Persia and Mesopotamia, and a Persian governor was sent to rule
over the land (A.D. 428). But the great nobles maintained and perhaps
increased their ascendency; they were supported by the obstinate
patriotism of the people; and the interval between the overthrow of
the ancient and the rise of the mediæval kingdom is filled by the
almost incessant clash of arms. From the east the pertinacity of
the Armenian race is challenged at first by the Persians, eager to
convert them to the religion of the Magi, and next by the Arabs, who,
after supplanting the Sasanian dynasty, seek to impose upon them the
precepts of Islam. Their neighbours upon the west are scarcely less
obtrusive; and we may discover beneath the religious controversies
with their fellow-Christians of the Roman Empire the same fervid
self-assertion which has enabled this strange people to preserve,
in the face of odds which appear to us to have been overwhelming,
the inflexible individuality of their race. While their clergy are
resisting the menaces or the blandishments of the Church of the
Empire, their nobles are combating the worship of the Persians or of
the Mohammedans at the head of the native levies. It thus happened
that, when the bonds relaxed which bound the subject states to the
Arab caliphate, the Armenians possessed, in their class of nobles as
well as in their patriarchate, institutions which had been tested in
the furnace of adversity during a period of over 400 years.
Two Armenian families of princely rank were conspicuous at that
time. The Artsruni had extended their possessions during the
domination of the Arabs, until they comprised a vast territory and
some of the richest districts in the neighbourhood of the ancient
city of Van. They claimed descent from one of the kings of Assyria,
whose two sons were reputed to have escaped to Armenia after having
perpetrated parricide. They drew their name from the lofty office
which had been bestowed upon their ancestor, that of bearing before
the Arsakid king the emblem of the golden eagle--an emblem which
is cherished by the Armenian inhabitants of Van at the present day
as the distinctive ensign of their city and province. The family of
the Bagratuni or Bagratids had attained a position in the centre and
north of Armenia which rivalled and perhaps surpassed that of the
Artsruni in the south. Of Jewish origin, they were already powerful
in the earliest Arsakid times, when they had been invested with the
hereditary privilege of crowning the king. Their ancient seats appear
to have been placed in the Chorokh country, in the vicinity of the
town of Ispir. But this nucleus became lost in the territory which
they subsequently acquired, whether by marriage or by conquest. The
province of Shirak, by which is designated the extensive grain-growing
district on the right bank of the Arpa Chai, was perhaps the richest
appanage of their House; but they were masters of the Armenian
districts on the side of Georgia, while towards the west and south
their possessions at one time extended into the plain of Pasin and
the fertile districts about the present town of Mush. A branch of
this same family established themselves in Georgia--the salubrious
uplands and rich plains at the southern foot of Caucasus, which are
separated from the highlands of Armenia by the belt of mountains on
the right bank of the river Kur. The Georgians, like the Armenians,
professed the Christian religion, and at the period with which we are
dealing were being harassed by the Arab caliphs. During the decline
of the caliphate, when native impulses were revived in Georgia as
well as in Armenia, the movement centred in a dynasty of Bagratid
descent. This dynasty outlived that of their kinsmen in Armenia by
many centuries. The Georgian sovereigns weathered the storm of Seljuk
invasion in the eleventh century, which swept before it the feeble
thrones of the Armenian monarchs. Perhaps they owed their escape in
part to the geographical position of their country, removed as it was
by a zone of intricate mountains from the highway of the Armenian
plains. Yet their capital, Tiflis, fell a prey to the same sultan
who captured Ani, the famous Alp Arslan. During the first half of
the twelfth century they were successful in expelling the invaders,
and a little later their kingdom was increased to the limits of an
extensive empire during the reign of the great queen Thamar. The
Georgian Bagratids maintained their throne until the end of the
eighteenth century, when the last king renounced his crown in favour
of the Russian Tsars. [267]
About the middle of the ninth century, to which I return from this
brief digression, the reigning caliph, Mutawakil, despatched an army
into Armenia with instructions to punish the inhabitants and to bring
them over to the Mohammedan faith. His severity had been invited by the
behaviour of his subjects, who had fallen upon and killed their Arab
governor. The Arab commander, by name Bugha, acquitted himself of his
congenial mission in a manner which accords with the best traditions
of Eastern statecraft. He crossed the Taurus, descended into the
plains about the Murad, and took prisoners all the Armenian chiefs of
the districts through which his route lay. The Bagratid family had
become involved in the preceding troubles; one of their members was
already in the hands of the caliph; and his two sons were now added
to the train of the avenging general, who directed his march from the
territory of Taron (Mush) to that of Vaspurakan (Van). The Artsruni
were not more fortunate in their resistance; their prince was captured,
loaded with chains, and sent to the caliph. Bugha pursued a leisurely
course through the Armenian country, giving over to the sword the less
prominent among the people, selecting some for their birth or personal
qualities as worthy of conversion to Islam. When he arrived at the
capital of central Armenia, the city of Dvin, in the neighbourhood
of the present town of Erivan, which had been conquered by the Arabs
in A.D. 642, [268] he was met by a native prince who bore the title
of commander-in-chief [269] and the name of Sembat. This notable
was the great-grandson of a distinguished Bagratid chief, Ashot, who
had been entrusted with the government of Armenia by the last of the
Ommiad caliphs, and who had been deprived of sight by his countrymen,
incensed at his Arab proclivities. According to the Armenians, this
Ashot was the progenitor alike of the Georgian sovereigns and of the
Armenian dynasty of the Middle Ages. His descendant endeavoured to
propitiate the tyrant, who appeared to listen to his fair words. But
Sembat was conveyed to Baghdad with the rest of the prisoners, and
accompanied the triumphal return of the caliph's legate. Arrived
at court, the Armenian princes were offered the choice of Islam and
freedom or a painful and violent death. Sembat was one of those who
refused to abjure his religion and who perished as a martyr to the
Christian faith (A.D. 856 [C.]). [270]
The pompous title of the deceased chieftain, together with his
influence, descended to his son Ashot. This prince had contrived
to escape the meshes of the Moslem net; and in the period which
immediately followed the departure of the Arab general he proved
himself worthy to sustain the burden of his high position. In the
flower of his age, he enjoyed the union of imposing physical qualities
with habits of mind which gave peculiar weight to his counsels, and
with a natural suavity of disposition and expression. An agreeable
face--in which, however, the eyes, with their heavy black eyebrows,
were shot with blood, like a speck of red upon a pearl--was set around
with a magnificent beard, and sprang from broad shoulders in keeping
with his fine stature. Whatever defects might belong to such an
exterior were compensated by the habitual purity of his life. The
prince was missed at the sumptuous banquets of the rich, but his
presence was felt by the poor in every action of their daily life.
He once said, "The service of humanity is a life-long service"; and
his precept was illustrated by the example of his own long life. How
far the qualities of the son of Sembat were instrumental in obtaining
a reversal of the policy of the caliphate, or whether the complete
change which ensued in the treatment of the Armenians may have been
due to causes of a different order, our historian has omitted to
relate. Five years after the martyrdom of his father and of the
leading nobles of his country, Ashot is invested by the new Arab
governor with the title of prince of princes, and becomes the
recipient of almost royal distinctions (A.D. 861 [D.]). [271] Those
of the nobles who had become apostates during the recent persecution
openly return to their old faith. For twenty-five years he continues
to exercise his authority, which reposes not only upon the goodwill
of the Arab governor, but also upon the loyalty of his fellow-nobles,
who consent that his family shall be assigned a special and quasi-
royal rank, and be permanently elevated above all other princely
families. At the end of this period the Armenian nobility unanimously
petition the caliph in favour of the elevation of their prince to the
rank of king. Their desire is conveyed to their suzerain by his
representative in the country, a governor by name Isa. It is accorded
with the greatest readiness. A royal crown is despatched, and placed
by Isa himself upon the head of Ashot. Armenian royalty is revived in
this branch of the Bagratid family after an interval of over 450 years
(A.D. 885 [D.]). The reigning Cæsar, Basil I., confirms this
investiture, and accompanies the friendly sentiments of an attached
ally and a spiritual father with the gift of a crown, the second to
be worn by the new monarch. [272]
For five years Ashot continued in the exercise of his kingly
prerogative, supported by the Armenian nobles, the most powerful
of whom he attached by marriage, and enjoying the favour both of
the Caliph and of the Emperor. His capital was the city of Bagaran,
on the banks of the Akhurean, the modern Arpa Chai, situated to the
south of the later capital at Ani. [273] He died in advanced age
(A.D. 889 [C.] or 890 [D.]) [274] and with unimpaired reputation at a
date when the empire of the caliphs was in process of dismemberment,
and when a number of petty Mussulman dynasties, such as the Tahirids
and the Saffarids, had arisen in the adjacent lands. [275] We can
scarcely doubt that his elevation was occasioned by the decline of the
central authority; and he and his descendants were glad to purchase
by the promise of an assured tribute the greater independence of the
Armenian people and their own ascendency.
At the time of the death of Ashot I. his son and successor Sembat was
absent on an expedition of conquest in the country of the Upper Kur.
He received the homage of his subjects upon his arrival at Erazgavors,
a town in Shirak, which was his own particular residence. Thither
repaired the prince of Georgia, Aternerseh, himself a Bagratid,
proffering his sympathy and his aid (A.D. 890 [C.]). The succession
was hotly disputed by Abas, brother of the deceased monarch, a vain
and ambitious prince. His animosity appears to have been directed in
the principal degree against the prince of Georgia; he broke the peace
which he was induced to make at the instance of the patriarch with
that potentate, and at length he turned his arms against the province
of Shirak. The approach of Sembat at the head of a numerous army
compelled him to take refuge in a strong place, and his condition was
desperate when he obtained from the clemency of his royal nephew a
pardon which he had not deserved. Sembat was already in possession of
supreme power when he received from the Arab governor of Azerbaijan
[276] on behalf of the caliph a royal crown such as had been bestowed
upon his father. At the same time he confirmed the friendly relations
which had subsisted between Ashot and the Byzantine Empire. The
reigning emperor, Leo VI., received his ambassadors with great
distinction, and dismissed them charged with valuable presents.
In the missives between them the king of Armenia was addressed as
a beloved son, and the Cæsar with the reverence due to a father. Nor
was this intercourse confined to a single and a splendid occasion; it
appears to have been renewed every year. It naturally excited the
jealousy of the Arab governor of Azerbaijan, the powerful neighbour
of the new state upon the east.
This individual, by name Afshin, is depicted by the priestly historian
with all the resources of the vocabulary of hate. He is a wild beast;
he is armed with the poignard of perfidy, and his death is described
as the outcome of a loathsome malady which destroyed the body before
the soul descended to hell. Throughout the reign we see him harassing
the dominions of the Armenian monarch; but his first expedition
appears to have been met by a vigorous and successful resistance,
which no doubt helped the remonstrances of Sembat. At the head of
his troops the king reasoned with his Mohammedan adversary, and
represented that his friendship with the emperor of the Greeks was
to the advantage of the master of Afshin. "You yourselves," he said,
"may at any moment have need of the support of the Greeks, and your
merchants require openings in Greek territory, whence they will draw
riches which will swell the treasury at Baghdad." These advances were
met on the part of the Arab governor by the offer of a peace, which was
duly ratified. Afshin returned to Azerbaijan, and the king retraced
his steps up the Araxes and appeared before the walls of Dvin. This
city, which was at this period the acknowledged capital of Armenia,
was reduced to an obedience from which it had lapsed. Its situation
in the neighbourhood of the present town of Erivan was calculated
to invest it with the character of a strong place on the side of the
Arab possessions in Persia. Its subjection to Sembat does not appear
to have been of long duration; during the subsequent portion of his
reign we find it in the hands of the Mohammedans, serving, it would
seem, as an advanced base to the troops of Afshin and of his successor.
The diplomacy no less than the prowess of Sembat was successful in
other directions nearer home. If his kingdom remained essentially
feudal in character, its limits were at least extended over the
adjacent lands. On the west his sovereignty was acknowledged as far as
the city of Karin, the modern Erzerum; while on the north-east and east
it embraced the foot of Caucasus and the shore of the Caspian Sea. The
Armenian princes who ruled in the country on the southern side of the
barrier of mountains which culminate in Ararat were attached to him by
feudal or family ties; his name must at least have been respected among
his countrymen beyond the limits of the lake of Van. His ascendency
was for a second time challenged by Afshin, who advanced to Nakhichevan
and Dvin; but he led his troops in person against the Mussulmans, and
inflicted upon them a signal defeat. The subsequent defection to his
enemy of his nephew, the prince of Vaspurakan (Van), who was joined
for a time by the prince of Siunik, a province bordering that of Van
upon the north, does not appear to have materially shaken his power; we
find him directing his attention to the outer limits of his territory,
and endeavouring to establish his dominion not only over the country
of Taron (Mush), but also as far south as the Mesopotamian plains.
This advance brought him into collision with an Arab emir, named Ahmed,
who, in the decay of the caliphate, cherished pretensions to these
districts. The Armenian prince of Taron was unable to withstand his
Mussulman adversary, and Sembat was obliged to take the field in person
(A.D. 896 [C.]). At the head of a numerous army he marched towards
Taron, west of which his enemy was encamped. The reverse of his arms
was due to the treachery of a countryman, a prince belonging to the
province of Vaspurakan; and, indeed, the jealousy of the chiefs of
the Van country seems to have paved the way for the successes of his
Mussulman neighbours. His old enemy Afshin was not slow to profit by
this turn of fortune. After attempting in vain to seduce the loyalty
of the northern feudatories of Sembat, he entered the province of Kars
and laid siege to that fortress. Thither had taken refuge the Armenian
queen, a daughter of the king of Kolchis, and several of the wives of
the principal nobles. The capitulation of Kars and the capture of the
queen came as a melancholy pendant to the disaster of the king's arms
in the south. He was obliged to purchase peace on humiliating terms,
and to give his niece in marriage to the Mohammedan potentate. But
it was not long before hostilities were again resumed in the same
quarter. Afshin directed his march towards the city of Tiflis, swept
like a whirlwind through the Georgian country, and advanced upon
Shirak. Sembat and his army were obliged to take refuge in the strong
places of his ally Aternerseh, upon whom he had previously bestowed
a royal crown; while his adversary, after having endeavoured in vain
to sap the loyalty of the Georgian prince, retraced his steps along
the Araxes to Azerbaijan. Afshin was meditating a fresh attack when
he fell a victim to a malignant malady, which appears also to have
made ravages among his troops (901 [St.-M.], 898-99 [D.]).
The tyrant was succeeded by his brother Yusuf in the government
of Azerbaijan. Upon the accession of this potentate the Armenian
monarch despatched an embassy to the caliph at Baghdad with the
view of contracting a stable alliance with the nominal sovereign
of Persia and of that portion of Armenia which lay within the Arab
sphere. His advances were well received by the successor of the
Prophet, who confirmed him in his royal dignity. [277] Although Yusuf
continued to pursue the hostile policy of his predecessor, he appears
to have been thwarted by the greater readiness of Sembat. Armenia
enjoyed a short respite from the inroads of the Mussulmans. "At this
period," says our historian, who is fond of allegory, "our Saviour
visited the country of the Armenians, and protected their lives
and property. Lands were bestowed, vines were planted and groves of
olive-trees; the most ancient fruit-trees yielded their fruits. The
harvests produced corn in excessive abundance; the cellars were filled
with wine when the vintage had been gathered in. The mountains were
in great joy, and so were the herdsmen and the shepherds, because of
the quantity of pasturage and the increase in the flocks. The chiefs
and notables of our country lived in perfect security and were not
afraid of depredations; they were free to bestow their leisure and
zeal upon the construction of churches in solid stone, with which
they graced the towns, the open country, and the desert places." The
king enjoyed the favour of his Byzantine ally, and the gifts of Heaven
were supplemented by the imperial presents. The ambition of the king
of Kolchis, who was striving to extend his dominions eastwards at the
expense of his relative, the Armenian monarch, was restrained by a
conjunction of the Armenian forces with those of the king of Georgia;
the unhappy kinglet was taken prisoner and lodged in a fortress, from
which he was released by the clemency of his captor and restored to
his possessions. This mild treatment of a rival excited the jealousy
of Aternerseh; the attached ally became converted into a perfidious
enemy; and the incident, while it seems to mark the culmination of this
brighter era, was the prelude of the domestic and foreign calamities
in which the reign of Sembat was brought to a tragic close.
A curious incident now occurs, which is characteristic of the
times (A.D. 905 [St.-M.]). Yusuf prepares in secret to sever his
allegiance to the caliph, and goes so far as to issue orders in his
own name. Apprised of his proceedings, the sovereign at Baghdad sends
messengers throughout his dominions to effect a rising against his
rebellious servant. One of the highest in rank of these envoys arrives
at the court of the Armenian monarch, and delivers a personal letter
requiring the prince to assemble his forces and to march against
the emir of Azerbaijan. As an inducement, the vassal is remitted
the payment of a year's tribute. This request or command was at once
difficult to comply with and impossible to elude or reject. Sembat
was bound to Yusuf by the terms of a treaty, and still more forcibly
deterred from offending his neighbour by motives of interest. It
was only natural that he should have recourse to perfidy, the usual
expedient in such circumstances among Eastern princes. But his
double-dealing was of transitory advantage: and it may, perhaps,
be excused by the reflection that his own weight would have been
insufficient to turn the scale to the advantage of either side. Yusuf
affected submission to his spiritual and temporal superior; the
Armenians were confronted by a coalition of the contending influences;
and the unhappy king was besieged by emissaries from both the Mussulman
princes, demanding the arrears of tribute in imperious terms. On four
occasions he had succeeded in acquitting his obligations by making
the prescribed payment in kind; but this time he was compelled to
discharge the debt in money, and to impose taxes which strained the
structure of his feudal rule.
A combination of some of the nobles with Aternerseh of Georgia was
the outcome of these events. Ani, which was then a fortress, was
handed over to Aternerseh, together with the treasures of the royal
palace at Erazgavors. Sembat at the head of his forces hurried back
to Shirak, whereupon the conspirators evacuated the province, laden
with spoils. The Armenian monarch carried the war into the territory
of Aternerseh, who was constrained to sue for peace. Many of the
revolted nobles fell into the hands of their sovereign, who, after
putting out their eyes, dispatched some to the Byzantine emperor
for custody and others to the king of Kolchis. This rising had no
sooner been quelled than the reigning prince of Vaspurakan separated
himself from the king. The cause of quarrel was a dispute about the
town of Nakhichevan in the valley of the Araxes, which Sembat had
conferred on another noble, but to which this prince had a hereditary
claim. Gagik--such was his name--had recourse to the common enemy,
Yusuf, who was eager to profit by such dissension among his Christian
neighbours. The emir bestowed upon him a royal crown in order to
perpetuate his rivalry with Sembat. It was all in vain that our
historian, who was at that time patriarch, endeavoured to avert the
rising storm. He even journeyed to the court of the emir in Azerbaijan,
taking with him magnificent presents, among which were included some
of the sacred vessels belonging to the churches. He was treated with
distinction by his Mussulman host so long as his gifts held out. When
these were exhausted he was thrown into prison, where he lingered for
a considerable time. The hardships of his condition were aggravated
by the mortification which he must have experienced at the complete
failure of his good offices. He was strictly refused an audience
of his countryman, King Gagik, who shortly afterwards arrived at
the court of Yusuf in order to concert an invasion of the territory
of Sembat. At the approach of spring the emir set out for Armenia,
taking with him the unhappy patriarch, loaded with chains. In the
neighbourhood of Nakhichevan were received the messengers of Gagik,
who announced the approach of their master with his troops (A.D. 909
[St. M.]). Sembat endeavoured to pacify his enemy by a payment of
money, which the emir swallowed without arresting his advance. The
king was quite unable to cope with the forces arrayed against him;
he fled to the fortresses of Georgia, whither he was pursued by his
implacable adversary.
It is unnecessary to follow in detail the developments of a situation,
of which the historical interest consists in the light which it
throws upon the Armenian monarchy of the Middle Ages, and upon the
relations of that monarchy to the neighbouring states. We see the
Artsrunian prince of the extensive province of Vaspurakan turning
his arms against his own countrymen and their Bagratid king, and
in active alliance with the enemies of his religion and race. The
Mussulman horsemen overran the fertile plains of Armenia, and the
tardy repentance of Gagik came too late. Sembat appealed in vain to
the suzerain at Baghdad, who was too much occupied by domestic troubles
to intervene. Better success attended his entreaties at the Byzantine
court, and his old friend, Leo, collected troops and marched in person
to his assistance. The death of the emperor at the inception of the
enterprise, and the internal troubles of the new reign, removed all
hope of succour from the side of the Roman provinces. The Christian
state in the heart of Asia seemed doomed to destruction, and the king
and queen were taken prisoners. Sembat was conducted to Dvin, where
he was barbarously tortured in the presence of the populace. Every
indignity was inflicted upon him, and each refinement of Oriental
cruelty; after he had expired, his body was nailed to a wooden stake
and exhibited to the townspeople (A.D. 914 [C.]).
A desperate effort was made by his son Ashot to retrieve the fortunes
of the Armenian arms. He expelled the Mohammedans from many of the
fortified places which they had occupied, and allied himself closely
with the king of Georgia, who placed the crown of Armenia upon his
head. Yusuf was not slow to revenge the reverses of his adherents,
and the whole country was given over to war. The wretched inhabitants
fled to the mountains and the deserts; the remnant wandered about in
a state of nakedness, and experienced all the tortures of famine. When
winter came thousands perished in the snow. If they fell into the
hands of the enemy they were either massacred or subjected to every
description of torture. In many cases they were offered liberty and
even affluence if they would abjure the Christian religion; but these
advances were almost always without effect. Our historian relates with
pride the tragic incidents of this period of martyrdom; and the
profession of faith which he puts in the mouth of one of the victims
is worthy of the highest conceptions of religious minds. "We are
Christians," exclaimed a young noble in the presence of Yusuf; "we
believe in God, Who is Truth and Who dwells in the midst of Light
without limits." These afflictions might have excited the compassion
of their Christian neighbours. But perhaps these neighbours were
conscious of their own helplessness; they preferred to ride on the
wave of the Mussulman invasion, and to share in the spoils of the
Armenian provinces. Whole towns were destroyed and whole countrysides
depopulated; while the nobles, instead of combining, were involved in
civil war. This state of affairs continued for no less than seven
years, exhausting the country and denuding it of cultivation. "We sow,
but we do not reap; we plant, but gather not the fruit; the fig-tree
bears not, and the vine and olive-tree are barren. We collect a little
and abandon the rest." Page after page our author unfolds the tale of
all the miseries which were endured by himself and his countrymen. He
himself was a refugee at the court of the king of Georgia, where he
was in correspondence with the patriarch of Constantinople. It was the
aim of Byzantine policy to unite the Christian nations of Transcaucasia
with the Armenians; and the historian, as the spiritual head of the
latter people, used his best endeavours towards this end. Issuing from
his retreat, he made his way to the province of Taron (Mush), whence he
addressed a long missive to the Byzantine Cæsar (A.D. 920 [C.]). In
touching terms he entreated him to become the avenger of the Armenian
Christians, whom he represented as the spiritual sons and servants of
Constantine. At his instance the Byzantine court despatched an imperial
legate to the son of Sembat, with the view of renewing the relations
which had subsisted between his father and the deceased ruler of the
Eastern Empire. Our writer met this envoy in the territory of Taron,
and accompanied him to the presence of Ashot. The prince returned with
the legate to Constantinople (A.D. 921 [C.]), where he was received in
a manner becoming his royal rank. He was addressed as the son of a
martyr and the spiritual son of the Cæsar, was arrayed in purple and
invested with the insignia of royalty. Meanwhile the historian was
sojourning in the province of Terjan, a district which has retained
its name to the present day. He naïvely exhibits the difficulties of
his position, endeavouring, as he was, to avoid complying with the
pressing invitations to the imperial city which were lavished upon
him by his spiritual brothers of the Greek Church. He was deterred by
the fear that he would be pressed to conform to the doctrine which
had been laid down at the Council of Chalcedon. His peregrinations
brought him to the scenes where St. Gregory the Illuminator passed
his later years in the seclusion of an anchorite. He describes the
cavern where the saint lived, and where his remains were deposited,
to be removed by an angel to a grave in the vicinity. His account
of this lonely place, so difficult of access, agrees in a striking
manner with that of a modern traveller, which it invests with an
impressive reality. [278] The patriarch found the district inhabited
by anchorites, who maintained an altar in the holy cave.
In the meantime Yusuf had become embroiled with his old ally
of Vaspurakan, and the war was being carried into the southern
province. A vigorous resistance was offered by King Gagik, who
owed his title to his enemy. Hostilities appear to have lingered
on without decisive result. Such was the state of affairs when King
Ashot II. returned to his dominions, accompanied by several generals
of the Roman Empire, together with a considerable detachment of the
imperial troops. This material support, as well as a subsidy in money,
enabled him to recover his position among his feudatories; and we
may conclude that the relations between himself and King Gagik had
become improved by the change in the attitude of the latter towards
the Mussulman emir. But that crafty statesman knew too well the weak
spots in the political organisation of the Armenians. If two kings
did not suffice to divide his opponents, it could do no harm and
might bring him fortune to create a third. His choice fell upon a
cousin of King Ashot, who had previously been invested by that monarch
with the title of general-in-chief. His name, which was also Ashot,
introduces further confusion into the turbid narrative of the priestly
historian. The stage becomes filled with a crowd of nobles, contending
with each other and combining to mutual destruction round the persons
of the two Ashots. Behind these figures emerge those of the king of
Kolchis and the king of Georgia, while in the background we perceive
the light cavalry of the Mohammedans and the gorgeous functionaries
of the Byzantine Empire. It is scarcely possible during this troubled
period to follow the threads of the emir's policy. No sooner has he
placed a crown upon the forehead of the one Ashot, than he invests
the other with similar insignia of royalty. [279] Nor does the king
of the Van country yield in splendour to his colleagues; the caliph
himself sends him a crown and magnificent robes. This act excites
the fury of the emir of Azerbaijan, who presently revolts from his
sovereign at Baghdad. His capture and imprisonment removed for awhile
the sword suspended over the head of Gagik, and were the occasion of
a general although transitory improvement in the condition of the
Armenian provinces. The caliph sent one of the highest in rank of
the officers about his person to take over the administration of the
province of his rebellious emir. This official not only concluded a
treaty of peace and alliance with Ashot II. (son of King Sembat), but
also conferred upon him the title of Shahanshah, or king of kings. In
this manner the Bagratid dynasty of Shirak recovered their titular
sovereignty over Armenia; and the fact illustrates a marked divergence
between the policy of the caliphate, which appears to have desired a
strong Armenia, and that of the semi-independent emirs of Azerbaijan,
who strove incessantly to prepare the country for their own yoke. On
the other hand, while the caliphs were anxious to secure a counterpoise
to their turbulent governors, the Byzantine Cæsars were well pleased
by any accretion of strength to a buffer state which was attached to
themselves by community of faith.
Our historian was not spared to witness the splendour of this dynasty,
as it is manifested in the noble buildings of their capital, Ani,
which had not yet become a royal residence. His closing years were
spent under a recrudescence of the old troubles--disunion from within
and new inroads of the Mussulmans from without. The release of Yusuf
restored this malefactor to the scene of his iniquities; [280] he
crossed the Kurdish mountains, and descended into the territory of
Vaspurakan. King Gagik was in arrears with several instalments of the
annual tribute, and was obliged to collect all the available riches of
his country and deliver them up to his implacable foe. Yusuf continued
his journey to Persia, and, upon his arrival, sent one of his officers
to assert his authority over the Armenian provinces. There ensued an
era of constant activity on the part of the Mussulmans. The patriarch
became a fugitive, taking refuge in the little island of Lake Sevan,
and proceeding thence to a small castle in his own possession. But the
enemy surrounded the place and took him prisoner, together with the
companions of his flight. Escaping from their clutches, he made his way
to the court of Ashot, who was residing in the royal palace of Bagaran;
and the curtain falls upon his narrative while he is on a visit to King
Gagik, with whom he appears to have maintained relations which were
perhaps prompted by motives of interest, since the patriarchal palace
and domains were situated within his dominions. [281] Panic had taken
hold of the feudal levies, and his countrymen were being massacred (924
[C.]). In one of the closing sentences in which he describes that Reign
of Terror he, in fact, resumes the larger history of his race: "Who
can foretell our future? Spare me the attempt. We are like a harvest
reaped by bad husbandmen amidst encircling gloom and cloud." [282]
We close these graphic pages with the feeling that we have been
privileged to gain some insight into the state of the country during
the reigns of the Bagratid sovereigns, as well as to estimate the
nature of their rule. If I have eliminated by this brief abstract
whole chapters of our author, I may perhaps have saved my reader
from becoming wearied by his declamations, and from losing the main
thread of his thrilling narrative among the side issues in which he
allows it to become involved. The sovereignty of the Bagratids was
essentially feudal in character; and the loose ties of such a political
organisation were ill adapted to withstand the strain to which they
were subjected at the hands of their Mussulman neighbours. Indeed,
the fact that such a dynasty could ever have arisen in the heart of
Asia, among a people which could not have numbered more than a few
millions of souls, can only be explained by the comparative weakness
of their contemporaries professing the Mohammedan faith. The Armenian
historians are fond of railing upon their countrymen on account of
the internal divisions which precipitated their political fall. They
are not less inclined to attribute the miseries of their nation to
their desertion in critical moments by the Greek Empire. But they
do not appear to have reflected that the frequent instances of
treachery among the Armenian nobles need not have been due to any
inherent defects in the character of the Armenian people. Similar
examples abound in the annals of our European nations while they
were still in the feudal stage of development. Again, the Greeks,
while they were no doubt prejudiced by dogmatic differences, might,
one cannot doubt, have established a good case for their abstention
from more strenuous succour of the young state. Their subsidies were
spent, and their troops were marched across Asia with little further
result than the aggrandisement of one princelet at the expense of a
competing claimant of the same race. The lesson which may be derived
from a perusal of this contemporary record explains to us many points
which would otherwise be obscure in the much more meagre annals of the
subsequent period which witnessed the frail blossoming and premature
destruction of the Armenian kingdom of the Middle Ages. When the hordes
of Turks descended from the valleys of the Tien-shan and swept across
the settled territories of Persia towards the richest portions of the
Old World, they found upon the high road of the Armenian tableland a
state which was as little adapted to provide a bulwark against their
invasions as any other of the fissiparous fragments of the caliphs'
empire.
The narrative of John the Patriarch brings us down to the closing years
of Ashot, second king of that name. The picture which he has presented
of the troubled reigns of these Bagratid sovereigns may enable us to
dispense with the repetition of similar struggles during the reigns of
their successors. Even were I permitted by the scope of this work and
by the material at my disposal to assign to that later period the same
proportion of space which has been devoted to the actions of the first
three kings, I should run the risk of inflicting upon my reader the
same fatigue which I have myself experienced by the perusal of a Samuel
of Ani [283] and a Matthew of Edessa, [284] to say nothing of the
industrious compilers of our own times. The storm-clouds, beneath which
the work of the priestly annalist closes, appear to have lifted over
the setting of Ashot's career; and a mild light envelops the reign of
his brother Abas, who succeeded him on the throne. This tranquil era
seems to have been induced by the weakness or somnolence of the
neighbours of Abas. The activity of the Sajid family in Azerbaijan,
which had been manifest in the exploits of Afshin and of Yusuf, came
to an end at the commencement of his reign. The caliphate was becoming
more and more the shadow of a reality; and the death of Radi (A.D. 940)
removed the last of the successors of the Prophet who sustained a
measure of personal power and prestige. In the West the Armenian
monarch might observe without anxiety the enforced seclusion of the
Cæsar, Constantine the Seventh, as well as the later application of
his benignant mind to the affairs of state. Such a wholesome respite
was employed by king and nobles in adorning Armenia with churches and
monasteries. In the city of Kars, where Abas appears to have placed
the seat of government, a cathedral of unusual grandeur rose into
being. [285] The pugnacity of the race was exercised in fierce
religious dissensions with the Church of the Empire. The western
provinces, subject to the Cæsars and administered by them, were
convulsed by the rival battle-cries of Greeks and Armenians, each
imputing to the other heretical opinions upon the unfathomable subject
of the divinity of Christ. Many Armenians took refuge within the
dominions of the Bagratid king; and if their babes had been baptized
according to the Greek ritual, the ceremony was performed a second
time by the jealous clergy of the Armenian Church (944 [C.]).
But it was under the next two reigns that the brilliancy of the dynasty
attained the culminating point. Upon the death of Abas his son Ashot
assumed the government; and it was perhaps due to a combination of
domestic dissensions and war with his neighbours that for ten years he
remained an uncrowned king. On the part of the Mussulmans, an Arab
emir, whom the historians name Hamdun, and who may perhaps be
identified with the powerful adversary of the Cæsars in Mesopotamia,
Seif-ed-Daula of the Hamdanid family, made incursions into the
southerly provinces of Armenia, and even threatened the dominions of
Ashot. The signal victory of the Armenian monarch (A.D. 960) [286]
appears to have gratified the caliph and his masters the Buwayhids,
a petty dynasty which had arisen in Persia, and into whose hands had
fallen Baghdad (945). The same event may have been instrumental in
consolidating the power of Ashot at home. In the year 961 he was
anointed king at Ani, in the presence and with the consent of the
great nobles. The rulers of the neighbouring states, Mussulman and
Christian, signified their goodwill by sending valuable presents.
His suzerain at Baghdad bestowed upon him a royal crown, addressing
him as Shah-i-Armen or Armenian shah. But we must impute to this
sovereign a new division of authority, and a consequent reduction of
the resisting powers of the Armenian nation in face of foreign
aggression. By investing his brother Mushegh with royal prerogatives
at Kars, he added yet another to the number of kinglets whose mutual
jealousies prepared the way for the passage of the Seljuk Turks towards
the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. His successor continued and even
developed this baneful policy, adding to the kings of Kars the kings
of Lori, in the mountains which border Armenia upon the north. This
latter Bagratid dynasty struggled on into the thirteenth century;
but the kings of Kars made over their realm to the Cæsar Constantine
the Tenth after the capture of Ani by the Seljuks under Alp Arslan.
The reign of Ashot the Third is contemporary with the campaigns of
Nikephorus Phokas and of John Zimiskes against the Saracens. Throughout
this period the Arab emirs of Syria and Mesopotamia are actively
engaged in harassing the outposts of the great Christian empire,
and are not less actively repulsed. The conceptions of the Crusaders
are anticipated by these generals over a century before the arrival
of the Western chivalry. Both successively ascended the throne of
the Cæsars; and it was in the capacity of emperor of the Romans
that Zimiskes, himself of Armenian descent, summoned the Armenian
monarch to attach to his army a contingent of troops. His expedition
appears to have excited the alarm of the Armenians; and the native
levies had been marshalled to the proportions of a large army under
the command of the three Armenian kinglets, Ashot, his colleague of
Kars, and his colleague of Van. Zimiskes advanced into the territory
of Mush; but an alliance was secured by the despatch of a body of
10,000 Armenian warriors to share in the victories which were about
to secure the triumph of the imperial arms over the followers of the
Prophet. These brilliant feats are narrated for the benefit of King
Ashot in a despatch which was addressed to him by the emperor, and
which has been preserved by Matthew of Edessa. The Armenian monarch
is styled Shahinshah of Great Armenia, the spiritual son of the Cæsar
(A.D. 974). [287]
The reign of this prince has a special interest for the traveller
to Ani; for it is at this period that the city on the Arpa emerges
from the condition of a mere fortress into the splendour of a royal
residence and capital of a kingdom. Ashot the Third is known to
have added both to the defences and to the public buildings of
a town which had witnessed the ceremony of his coronation. [288]
It was considerably enlarged by his son and successor, Sembat the
Second, who built the outer wall in face of which I have brought my
reader at the commencement of this chapter. [289] Sembat also laid
the foundations of the cathedral, but died before it was completed.
[290] The title which is assigned to this king by the Armenian
historians dissembles with truly Oriental ingenuity the inherent
weakness of the structure which supported his throne. He is styled
the king of Armenian kings, Shahinshah-Armen. Sembat was succeeded
by his brother Gagik the First, a prince who is described as at once
victorious in the field and strenuous in the works of peace. His
military qualities may have been displayed in a campaign against
the Mussulmans under the emir of Azerbaijan, Mamlun. But the credit
of the victory over this successor of the Afshins and the Yusufs
belongs in the principal degree to an Armenian prince of the country
of Akhaltsykh, David, who endeavoured, at the head of forces composed
of Georgians and Armenians, to wrest from the Moslem yoke the
fortresses in the south of Armenia, Melazkert, Akhlat, Arjish. [291]
It is rather in the sphere of a patron of art that we may be able to
remember Gagik. It was during his reign that the noble cathedral at
Ani was brought to completion, largely at the expense and by the
initiative of his queen. [292] He built another of the great churches
which adorned his capital, that of the Illuminator on the side of the
Valley of Flowers. [293] The monastery of Marmashen, near Alexandropol,
was constructed at this period by one of the Armenian princes, Vahram.
[294] Lastly, the seat of the patriarchate was removed to Ani from the
neighbouring town of Arghina. [295]
Upon the death of King Gagik the eldest of his three sons ascended the
ancestral throne. Rare natural intelligence belonged to John Sembat--
the monarch is known under either name; but these mental qualities were
perhaps clouded by an excessive corpulency. On the other hand, his
brother Ashot displayed the union of physical symmetry to ardent
courage and passion for war. The man of action chafed under the
supremacy of the peaceable civilian; and no sooner was the natural
heir in possession of his heritage than his ambitious brother broke
into open revolt. A peace was at length concluded upon the terms that
John should reign in Shirak, with the capital Ani, and Ashot over the
remainder of his father's dominions. [296] This compact was observed
at least so far that Ashot the Fourth was never permitted by his
jealous colleague to enter the capital. [297] But the civil war
loosened the bonds which attached the feudatories to their king, and
the neighbouring states to a dynasty in its strength. The one partner
was obliged to have recourse to the Cæsar Basil; and it was not
without the assistance of a contingent of imperial troops that
Ashot IV. imposed his rule upon his allotted territories. The other
was defeated at the commencement of his reign by the Bagratid king
of Abkhasia and Georgia, whose troops entered and pillaged Ani. [298]
These events appear to have been followed by a period of comparative
tranquillity, during which either monarch was enabled to recover
breath. But the Mussulman emirs were encroaching; the Seljuk Turks
were harrying the frontiers; and the Armenian nation, the natural
bulwark against their invasions, was distracted by the separate
counsels of the king with Ani and the king without Ani, of the king
of Lori and the king of Kars. The king of Van, upon whom the brunt of
the Mussulman and Turkish incursions had fallen, was preparing or had
already accomplished the cession of his kingdom to the Cæsar, in
despair of withstanding these unceasing assaults.
The tribes composing the wave of the great Turkish invasion appear
upon the stage of Armenian history as early as the commencement of the
eleventh century. [299] The aspect and dress of these savages were
as unfamiliar to the Armenians as their mode of conducting war. The
Christian warriors, armed with the sword, encountered swarms of
archers whose long hair floated behind them like that of women. [300]
The signal defeat of his son David by these nomads about the year
1018 caused the reigning king of the Van country to lose heart. The
news was brought to him while he was residing in the delicious town
of Vostan, upon the wooded spurs of the Kurdish mountains overlooking
the lake of Van. His despondency was confirmed by the recollection of
a prophecy in which St. Nerses, the fifth successor of St. Gregory,
had foretold the advent of great calamities at the hands of a barbarous
people a thousand years after the divine mission of Christ. Senekerim
despatched his son to the court of Constantinople, where he was
received with the greatest kindness by the Emperor Basil II. The Cæsar
accepted the gift of his extensive and populous realm, and gave in
exchange a secure retreat within the borders of the Empire, the city
and territory of Sivas (A.D. 1021). An imperial governor was sent to
take over the ceded dominions, in which were included no less than 72
fortresses, 4000 villages, and 8 towns. [301] Some display of force
was necessary in order to fasten upon the southern province the rule
of the Byzantine monarchs; and it is probable that the measures taken
to assert their authority still further enfeebled the rampart they had
come to defend. The progress of the shepherds may be traced through the
pages of the Armenian historians during the ensuing years. In A.D. 1021
they advanced from Azerbaijan upon the town of Nakhichevan under the
conduct of their prince, the famous Toghrul Bey. This incursion was
directed up the valley of the Araxes into the country about Ararat. It
was resisted by a force of Georgians, who retired without coming to an
engagement, and, a little later, by a small detachment of the Armenian
army under Vasak, the commander-in-chief. But no concerted action
was taken against the invaders, the Armenians contenting themselves
with deeds of personal prowess, and the Turkomans swarming over the
settled country, plundering, destroying, and putting the inhabitants
to the sword. [302] In the year 1042 they were encountered by the
king of Armenia, Gagik, the successor of John Sembat and Ashot. At
the head of his troops he inflicted upon them a signal defeat on the
banks of the Zanga, the river of Erivan. The Turks retired into the
Van country, which they devastated anew. [303] Three years later
they appeared again in the same province; but this time they were
fugitives from Mesopotamia, where they had been repulsed by the
emir of Mosul. Their prayer for a safe passage home into Persia was
refused by the imperial governor residing at Arjish, on the lake of
Van. But the forces at his disposal were routed by the tribesmen, who
took him prisoner and put him to death. [304] The Turks returned in
greater numbers during the following years, laying waste the southern
province, flooding northwards into Pasin and into the valley of
the Chorokh. To this period belong the sack of Arzen (near Erzerum)
in 1049, and the pillage of Kars and massacre of its inhabitants in
1050. Neither the imperial generals nor their Georgian and Armenian
dependents were successful in making headway against the storm. [305]
The year 1054 was made memorable in the native annals by the siege
of Melazkert. Toghrul had arrived at the head of an immense army in
the districts bordering the lake of Van on the side of Azerbaijan. The
town of Berkri was taken by assault, that of Arjish purchased immunity;
and the conqueror led his host across the level country at the foot
of Sipan to the walls of the fortress on the Murad. Melazkert was at
that time in the possession of the Empire, and was stoutly defended
by its governor. After a close investiture, during which the garrison
displayed great resource and bravery, the Seljuk king was constrained
to retire. But he had already despatched detachments of his army in
all directions; the Turks penetrated as far north as the slopes of
Caucasus and the Pontic forests, and as far south as the mountains
bordering the southern shore of Lake Van. [306] The area of their raids
was still further extended during the subsequent decade. The territory
of Mush was overrun in 1058; and the lonely cloister of Surb Karapet,
which overlooks that extensive plain, witnessed the prowess of the
Armenian chiefs, who directed their gaze towards it before falling
upon their savage foes. [307] These bands had perhaps returned from
the sack of Malatia beyond and on the west of the Euphrates. [308] In
the following year the advancing tide reached the city of Sivas, that
peaceful haven in the interior of Asia Minor which had been allotted
to King Senekerim, and which was now in possession of his sons. These
princes fled for their life, and the Turks were for a moment arrested
by the spectacle of the multitude of white domes, belonging to the
churches, which they mistook for the tents of their enemy. But both the
city and the plain of Sivas were given over to pillage and massacre;
streets and countryside were deluged with blood. [309] North, south,
and west spread the relentless inundation; at one time the current
sets towards the territory of Karin (Erzerum), at another it eddies
around the mountains in the south between Diarbekr and Palu. [310]
Armenian patriots of the present day brand the memory of King
Senekerim, the Artsrunian, and insult his tomb in the cloister of
Varag, overlooking Van. No more lenient judgment is meted out to the
Bagratid king of Ani, who, as early as the year 1022, willed away
his dominions to the same Cæsar who had supplanted the sovereign of
the southern province. But these events are but the outward signs of a
general retreat of the Armenians before the advance of Turks and Kurds,
battering in the gates of the caliphate and pressing forward into
the settled countries. [311] A fairer view might impute it to these
Christian kinglets that they failed to stand their ground upon the
bulwarks of Eastern Christendom, drawing support from their powerful
neighbours of the same faith, who were welded together in a single
and magnificent empire. But that empire, so justly respected by the
Mussulmans as the realm of the Romans, was an object of particular
aversion to the Armenians as the home or the prey of the hated and
unorthodox Greeks. On every page of Armenian history is written
large the mutual suspicion which envenomed the relations of the
two races. Where co-operation might have seemed impossible we may
perhaps excuse the abdication of the weaker party, and even justify
the usurpation of the stronger. And the judicial historian, who may
sift the facts with greater care than the inquisitive traveller, will
perhaps conclude that the blame must be laid on wider shoulders--upon
the Pan-Greek policy of the Byzantine Cæsars and their masterful
hierarchy, and upon the perversity of two cultured and Christian
peoples, who, rather than compose or postpone their quarrels, threw
this culture and this religion into the maw of savages.
At the time when the Bagratid kingdom of Armenia was suffering from
a fresh division of the regal authority under John Sembat and Ashot,
the neighbouring Empire was administered by a worthy successor of
Nikephorus and of Zimiskes. The Emperor Basil the Second stands out
in the Byzantine annals as a monarch who did not disgrace the title of
the Roman Cæsars. His personal intervention in the affairs of Armenia
dates from the reign of Gagik the First, and was occasioned by the
death of the prince of the Akhaltsykh country, David, who had during
his lifetime been a fast ally of the emperor, and who had named him
heir to his principality. Basil hurried to Armenia to take over his
new possessions; he was greeted by the kings of Kars and of Van;
but King Gagik excited his displeasure and provoked his resentment
by somewhat pointedly remaining away. The Cæsar appears to have
made a peregrination of the Armenian country, visiting Shirak, and
perhaps occupying some of the fortresses in the south, such as Akhlat,
Melazkert, and Arjish. [312] Years later he was again summoned to the
scene of his former successes; but on this occasion it was his duty
to combat the folly of two Christian princes who had taken up arms
against that Empire which alone could save them from their doom. King
George the First of Georgia, in concert with King John Sembat of Ani,
had been raiding in the imperial dominions. Basil established his
camp in the plain of Erzerum, and summoned the Georgian monarch to
submit. Upon the failure of his embassies he made his way by the
plain of Pasin to the territory of Kars. The armies came together
in the neighbourhood of Lake Chaldir; and if the issue of a furious
engagement may have seemed uncertain, the result was established by
the retirement of the Georgians into their strong places, and by the
devastation of their country by the imperial forces, which included
contingents of barbarous peoples such as Russians and Bulgarians. The
emperor spent the winter in the neighbourhood of Trebizond, where
he received an envoy from the king of Ani, no less a person than the
patriarch, accompanied by twelve bishops, seventy monks, two scholars,
and three hundred knights. The presence no less than the gifts of
this distinguished embassy might have appeased the just wrath of the
most Christian emperor; but his expectations were perhaps exceeded
by the production of a testament in which John Sembat named him the
heir to his dominions. This voluntary cession (A.D. 1022) secured the
immunity of the kingdom of Ani; and Basil was free to exact his terms
from the Georgian. Measures were taken to ensure the future safety of
the domains of Akhaltsykh, and the imperial army was paraded upon the
extremities of the Armenian country, carrying fear into the hearts of
the inhabitants of Azerbaijan. Basil returned to his distant capital,
having smoothed the way for the extension of the Empire across the
natural bridge of the Asiatic highlands. The masters of Akhaltsykh
in the north and of Van in the south could afford to wait for the
death of a feeble and childless king. [313]
But the Emperor Basil died in the year 1025, and was followed upon the
throne by no less than six sovereigns within the space of seventeen
years. His bold policy was committed to feeble hands and incapable
brains; and perhaps the testament of King John was forgotten by
the Emperor Romanus when he bestowed his niece in marriage upon its
author. [314] The bridegroom did not profit by this opportunity of
producing an heir who might have rivalled the claims of the heir of
Basil. Upon the death of John, which occurred some years after this
event, the reigning emperor, Michael, took steps to enforce those
claims. One of the most powerful of the Armenian nobles, by name
Sargis, supported the cession of the kingdom in accordance with the
imperial demand. His proposal was resisted by his compeers, and the
imperial forces were despatched into Shirak. Arrived under the walls
of Ani, they were surprised by a sally of the garrison, who were led
by the chiefs of the faction opposed to Sargis, under the supreme
command of the intrepid Vahram (A.D. 1041). The Greek army was routed
after incurring heavy losses, and the river of Ani was reddened by the
blood of the Greeks. Gagik, the son of King Ashot, who was then a mere
youth, was raised to his uncle's throne; and the hateful Sargis was
taken prisoner by the successful party, but restored to liberty by
the clemency of the young king. The imperial anger continued to harass
an inexperienced prince who was regarded by the Byzantine court as an
usurper; but the death of Michael in the same year suspended the
delivery of a decisive blow. His nephew, another Michael, ruled or
tyrannised for a few months; the disorders of his reign were followed
by those consequent upon his expulsion; and a short period was perhaps
necessary for his successor, Constantine Monomachus, to establish
himself upon the throne. The revenge which he inherited against the
kingdom of Ani was stimulated by the intrigues of Sargis, who
suggested that the youthful Gagik should be enticed to Constantinople,
in order to smooth the way for the surrender of the city. The promises
of the emperor, and the oaths of the nobles that they would conserve
his capital during his absence, were successful in drawing the monarch
away; but a considerable display of force was rendered necessary
before the garrison could be induced to surrender Ani. After a first
reverse, measures were taken by the absent emperor to secure the
triumph of his arms. A Kurdish emir, who was powerful in Karabagh and
the valley of the Araxes, was induced to join his forces to those of
the Empire; and matters had become hopeless when the city was
delivered over to the emissary of the Cæsar by the notables in
concert with the patriarch (A.D. 1045). King Gagik was allotted a
territory in Cappadocia and a palace at Constantinople. A Greek
governor was despatched to take over Ani and the new possessions,
which placed the crown upon the extension of the Roman Empire along
the valley of the Araxes and round the shores of Lake Van. [315]