Lords of the Mountains: The Foundation of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia

Just to the north of the modern-day city of Adana in south-central Turkey, nestled amongst a series of steep hillsides and imposing cliff faces, lie the ruins of an ancient fortress. The Castle of Sis in the foothills of the Taurus Mountains offers spectacular views of the surrounding countryside, neighbouring castles perched atop similar rocky outcrops, but most importantly of all, the pathways and gateways to Cilicia that once criss-crossed the landscape of this mountainous and ancient place. Inhabited continuously for almost 5,000 years, the citadel at Sis was once home to Hittite settlers manning the frontier territories of their state against attacks from the Egyptian-held Levant. Later, it was held by Greeks, Romans and Byzantines until its conquest by the Arabs during the 8th century. An important defence and gateway into the Cilician highlands, Sis was recaptured in 962 by the Byzantine Emperor Nisophorus Phocas, who recognised the tactical and strategic importance of its location. It is then, from the 10th century onwards, as the Byzantines resettled imperial subjects from elsewhere in the empire into Cilicia, that the castle entered its most captivating phase of all. From the early 12th century until it was finally destroyed by the Mamluks in 1375, Sis was the capital and focal point of an independent Christian nation that once clung onto existence in the Taurus Mountains and the adjacent Cilician plain. It was a state founded by those same settlers who had been forcibly and voluntarily relocated into the area by the Byzantine government, yet far outlived their original imperial overlords in the area. We know it today as the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, though in its heyday, its rulers were simply known as the Lords of the Mountains. There is a reason why control of Sis was so sought after, and similarly why the once prosperous city managed to retain its autonomy for so long during the middle ages. The castle of Sis was one of the largest and most impressive fortified sites in the entire world. If laid down in a straight line from end to end, its outer walls would span a distance of close to three kilometres, yet it is much more than simple walls. Towers, fortifications, cisterns and even residential buildings were expertly crafted into the natural limestone of the outcrop itself, providing an exceptionally strong and natural defence against any attack. Just in case these naturally imposing fortifications weren't enough, the vast majority of modifications were built with well-cut rusticated ashlar, an expertly maintained type of masonry typical of Armenian fortifications, and an art which these settlers brought with them from their original ancient homeland on the Armenian plateau. It was one of those exiles, forced out of his original homeland in the mid-11th century, by a combination of Machiavellian Byzantine schemes and Turkic invasions, who in 1080 officially founded the independent nation of Armenian Cilicia as a final refuge for his people. Possibly a distant relative of the royal family of the now defunct Armenian kingdom which had once thrived to the north-east before it was stamped out of existence by the Byzantines in the 1040s, Ruben had at first accompanied Gagik II, the last king of Armenia, into exile in Anatolia, where he had been given the governorship of an imperial province as compensation for his kingdom. It was there, in the eastern Anatolian province of Lycandus, just over the border from the ancient Armenian homeland, which up until that point had been continually inhabited by Armenians for thousands of years in an unbroken line of succession since the Iron Age, that Gagik and the last remnants of his court who had followed him into exile, were forced to live amongst the same people who had annexed their kingdom in the 1040s. In 1064, it was from Lycandus and the surrounding Byzantine provinces that they first heard the horrifying half-rumours trickle in of the Seljuq advances into their original homeland, which finally culminated in the sack of the once mighty city of Ani, Gagik's old capital city, once home to over 100,000 people. The Seljuqs massacred much of the inhabitants of the city and sold the rest into slavery, yet Gagik remained powerless to act, without an army or any sort of real authority. Whilst the loss of Ani must have been a hauntingly devastating blow to any Armenian exiles living within the borders of the empire, they were at least now relatively safe, even if they were subject to the laws of a foreign bureaucracy. In 1071 however, all this was to change, when even more devastating news flooded in like a deluge from the east. The mighty imperial army of the had been wiped out at Manzikert by the Seljuq sultan Alp Arslan, the very same ruler who had sacked Ani and ravaged Armenia in the 1060s. Most astonishingly of all, Romanos himself had been taken prisoner. This was the first time in history that a Byzantine emperor had ever been taken captive by a Muslim enemy. Now, as usurpers, regional strongmen and ambitious generals throughout the empire almost immediately began vying for the throne, or simply a small corner of land to govern for their own, the very real possibility emerged that Alp Arslan, or at least his people, would pour onto the Anatolian plains to ravage the rest of the empire. Even inside the imperial state that had once swallowed up their kingdom and stamped out their independence, Armenians were no longer safe. Armenians had been emigrating into the southern Anatolian province of Cilicia from the Armenian plateau for centuries by the 11th century. Ever since the time of the Byzantine emperor Maurice, five centuries earlier, even before the birth of Islam. They had long served in the imperial armies as regional bureaucrats and even sat on the imperial throne on a number of occasions. In recent years however, following the decline and annexation of the once mighty Baghdad Kingdom, which prospered from the 9th century onwards, these emigrations were more akin to forced relocations, or even outright escape from the Armenian plateau from the east. By 1071, the Armenian population in Cilicia and the surrounding provinces was so large that one of Romanos' former generals, Filaratos Bukhamios, an Armenian by birth, succeeded in establishing himself as the ruler of a largely autonomous state. Though at first he may well have broken away from Constantinople, more out of a dislike for the Ducas family who had deposed Romanos after his return from captivity, his state and the Taurus mountains that bordered it to the west soon became renowned as a haven for Armenians and other imperial subjects, seeking a safe haven from Seljuk attacks. By 1079, just as Bukhamios, now completely autonomous and at the head of a powerful army comprising of Normans, Armenians and Greeks, was accepted back into favour by the new emperor Nisyphorus Spartaniatus, probably an old colleague, under the proviso that he accept a symbolic vassalage to Constantinople. Gaziq finally made it very clear that he had had enough of the Byzantines. According to a number of contemporary sources who describe the events in vivid detail, Gaziq violently murdered a local orthodox bishop named Marcos who had repeatedly scorned and belittled the former king for being an adherent of the Armenian church, deemed heretical by the orthodox Byzantine faith. Allegedly, Marcos kept a dog that he called Armen to humiliate the story goes that Gaziq seized both the dog and Marcos, beat them both severely in a canvas bag and then had his household guards put them into the same bag until the bishop died in agony. Later that same year, Gaziq was caught and killed by Marcos' brother, a local regional official. Though the bishop's murder had been an exceptionally grisly affair, the Byzantine response overshadowed it in the eyes of the Armenians. They not only had Gaziq killed, but had his mutilated body displayed publicly from the walls of a local fort for all to see. This overwhelmingly had the effect of turning Armenian public opinion drastically against the Byzantines. It also sparked much of the remaining Armenian population within the borders of the empire to take part in a mass exodus to the south, where they settled in the Taurus mountains, Cilicia or in the lands just to the east held by Bukhamios. One of those Armenians who went south that year was a general named Ruban who seems to have been a member of Gaziq's court since at least the 1040s and according to some sources was a distant relative of the Bagratids, though it's equally possible that he was a high-ranking general seeking legitimisation by associating himself with the now nearly extinct Armenian royal family. Some sources even say that Ruban was a son of Gaziq, although this too seems unlikely. As if he had been, he would have surely advertised his heritage rather than founding a new dynasty, the Rubanids. Initially holding the title Lord of Gobidar and Goromosel, Ruban launched a full-scale rebellion against the Byzantine empire in the wake of Gaziq's death, seizing the important Cilician fortress of Partapert and officially declaring the independence of Armenian Cilicia with himself under the new title Lord of the Mountains, thus signalling his intent to conquer the entire Taurus range and establish it as a new easily defensible homeland for his people. It was an incredibly bold and daring move, yet one that would pay off in time. After a series of long and harsh battles against local strongmen and the last vestiges of imperial bureaucracy, Ruban managed to utilise his association with the Bagratis and his skill in battle to solidify the various disunited Armenian princes and warlords into a semblance of a unified state. Rather than fight yet another warlord and face the difficult prospect of annexing the mountainous Armenian state on his doorstep, Brachamios opted to accept Ruban as a vassal, thus the foundations were laid for the kingdom that would follow. The territory of the Armenians in Cilicia was exceptionally difficult for an invading army to travel through, let alone conquer, and Ruban continued to gradually bring more and more enclaves, towns, cities and strongholds under his control as the months and the years went by, always emphasising his association with the now revered Bagratid kingdom and the almost martyr-like status of Gaziq. Upon the Cilician plain to the south however, and even in the mountains of the hinterland, still remained determined Byzantine holdouts. Ruban spent the 1080s gradually pushing further southwards towards the coast and inland towards Cappadocia to take more Byzantine strongholds. Progress was slow and conditions were tough, but he and his followers were now finally free to dictate their own destiny. In 1086, hot off the heels of conquests elsewhere in his vast realm, the new Seljuk Sultan Malik Shah descended upon northern Syria and eastern Anatolia with a vast and revitalised army, where he crushed the last vestiges of imperial control, as well as Brokamios' state. Whilst the actual invasion wasn't nearly as devastating as first feared, the repressive tax burden now imposed upon the inhabitants of the new Seljuk domains provided the impetus for yet another mass migration into the Taurus mountains, where word had spread of the independent Armenian mountain lord going it alone there. By 1090, Ruban was an old man. Though his exact date of birth is unknown, he was likely around 70 years old by this time, maybe even older. In 1090, he handed over much of the command of his fledgling realm to his son Constantine, who in the same year proved his worth by conquering the strategically important castle of Vakar. By the time of Ruban's death in 1095, he had succeeded in establishing a strong independent polity and successor state to the medieval Armenian kingdom. His son and heir Constantine provided safe passage and support to the warriors of the first crusade as they passed through Cilicia in the late 1090s, even providing much needed provisions during the siege of Antioch, which had been seized from his father's ally, Philaratos Brokamios, a decade earlier, and would now become the centre of a new ally, the Principality of Antioch. Though the two realms would often come to odds against each other over the next 200 years, as would the other crusade estates, they would also come together numerous times to wage war against their mutual enemies, and to marry their noble families together. It was Constantine's son, Thoros, Lord of the Mountains, who finally succeeded in conquering the fortress of Cis in the early 1100s, which he then established as the new capital of the realm. He also finally avenged the killing of his assassins some 30 years after his death. Thus began the golden age of Armenian Cilicia, which would only continue to grow over the next century until it was finally declared a kingdom in 1199, during which time it had become one of the most important players of the region. Though not much remains of little Armenia today, the scattered remnants of long abandoned castles remain as a testament to the determination of this small yet courageous kingdom to not only survive as the last independent enclave of Armenian and Christian culture in the Middle East, but to thrive as the last vestige of an ancient nation.