Ancient Armenia: The First Christian Kingdom

For centuries, Armenia endured between rival superpowers without ever losing its distinct identity. That resilience laid the foundation for one of the world's oldest continuous traditions of statehood, a legacy that survives to this day. But how did Armenia endure where so many of the great kingdoms of the ancient world vanished? Welcome to our documentary on the History of Ancient Armenia. Between the 9th and 6th centuries BC, a powerful kingdom known as Urartu, also called Byanili or the Kingdom of Van, flourished in the mountains north of the Fertile Crescent. Its rulers governed from their capital of Tushpa on the shores of the salty waters of Lake Van. They built vast irrigation canals that were unmatched for their time and raised formidable mountain fortresses. One of them was Erebuni, founded in 782 BC. Today, Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, stands on this site. But in 590 BC, the Medes invaded from the east. The kingdom of Urartu fell, yet the people of the Armenian highlands did not disappear. Urartu was a multi-ethnic kingdom. Its kings and aristocracy spoke a language closely related to Hurrian. According to ancient sources, however, the kingdom was home to more than 70 different tribes, many of them Indo-European. Among them were undoubtedly speakers of Proto-Armenian. Even earlier, Hittite sources mention the kingdom of Hayasa, located north of Lake Van. Its name closely resembles Hayastan, the Armenian name for Armenia. After the fall of Urartu, Proto-Armenian gradually replaced the Urartian language and became the common language of the tribes that inhabited that region. In 522 BC, when the Persian king Darius I commissioned his famous Behistun inscription, he was already using the names Urartu and Armenia to refer to the very same land, sometimes even within a single sentence. By the 5th century BC, Armenians were regularly mentioned in written sources as the people inhabiting the Armenian highlands. What exactly happened during the preceding century is something we will most likely never know. But by then, the Armenian people had already emerged. Ahead lay a millennia-long struggle against the greatest empires of the ancient world. The first rulers of Armenia belonged to the Orontid dynasty. Its founder, Orontes I, served as the Archimedean satrap of Armenia and was the son-in-law of Artaxerxes II. He later fell out of favor and was reassigned as governor of the small province of Mysia in Asia Minor. It was there that he joined the revolt of the satraps against the Persian king. He even began minting his own gold coins, despite the fact that in the Archimedean empire, only the king had the right to issue gold coinage. Although the revolt ended in defeat, Orontes was eventually pardoned and allowed to return to Armenia, where he ruled for the rest of his life. Armenia remained a province of the Achaemenid Empire until the campaigns of Alexander the Great. In 330 BC, he destroyed the Achaemenid Empire and Armenia became part of the Seleucid Empire, the Hellenistic state that inherited much of Alexander's former empire. Armenia was still not independent, but it would not remain that way for much longer. In 190 BC, the Seleucids suffered a crushing defeat at the Battle of Magnesia. Roman legions shattered the army of Antiochus the Great. It became clear that Seleucid power was waning and that their rule was drawing to a close. Two Seleucid commanders seized the opportunity. Artaxas, who governed the north, proclaimed himself king of Greater Armenia and founded the Artaxid dynasty. From a single Seleucid province emerged two independent kingdoms. Zaryadris became the ruler of Sophene in the south. Artaxas I proved to be a gifted ruler. He secured his borders, expanded his realm, and left his successors a stronger kingdom than the one he had inherited. According to tradition, an unlikely advisor helped him choose the site for his new capital, Artaxata, the Carthaginian general Hannibal, who had fled east after Rome's in the Second Punic War. Although smaller than the kingdom of Artaxas, Sophene occupied a strategically vital position in the upper reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates. Numerous trade routes linking Asia Minor with Mesopotamia and Iran crossed its territory. The kingdom prospered as a result and its rulers began minting their own coinage. Yet Armenia's true golden age was still several generations away. Four generations later, a ruler ascended to the throne who would briefly transform Armenia into a great power capable of challenging both Rome and Parthia. His name was Tigranus the Great. He became king in 95 BC. Before ascending the throne, he had spent many years at the Parthian court as a hostage. The Parthians held him there to secure the loyalty of his father, Tigranus I. To win both his freedom and the Armenian throne, Tigranus was forced to cede the fertile and prosperous region known as the Seventy Valleys to Parthia. Recovering those lands became one of the defining goals of his reign. In his very first year as king, Tigranus annexed Sophene, uniting the two halves of historical Armenia for the first time. He then launched a campaign against Parthia. In 88 BC, his army invaded Parthian territory and within three years, it had reached Ekpartana, the summer capital of the Parthian kings. The very city where Tigranus himself had spent so many years as a hostage. Now it stood defenseless before his army. By a remarkable coincidence, just as the Armenian army approached the walls of Ekpartana, Halley's Comet appeared over Armenia and remained visible for nearly a month. Contemporaries saw it as a sign from the heavens and Tigranus later even had it depicted on his coins. At the time, Parthia was at its weakest. The kingdom was torn apart by civil wars, devastated by nomadic raids from the northeast, and locked in conflict with the remnants of the Seleucid Empire in the west. During those wars, the Parthian king Gotarzus had even been taken prisoner. Tigranus conquered northern Parthia. He appointed his younger brother, Guras, governor of the newly conquered territories and sent him to the frontier city of Nisibis. Around the same time, he placed his cousin, Artaxis, on the throne of neighboring Iberia. Returning to Armenia at the head of a rapidly expanding empire, Tigranus assumed the title Shahanshah, King of Kings, a title previously reserved for the rulers of Persia and Parthia. By 83 BC, the Seleucid Empire had been exhausted by decades of dynastic infighting and wars on multiple fronts. According to the ancient historians Justin and Appian, it was the people of Syria themselves who offered Tigranus the royal crown. He accepted it and went on to conquer Cilicia, parts of Cappadocia, and northern Mesopotamia. At the height of its power, his empire stretched from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean. Tigranokerta became the new capital of Armenia. To transform it rapidly into a great city, Tigranus ordered the inhabitants of twelve conquered Greek cities to be resettled there. Parks, a theater, gymnasia, and all the other hallmarks of a Hellenistic city soon followed. Yet beneath the empire's outward strength lie serious internal problems. After Tigranus was wounded during a hunting expedition, one of his sons, believing his father would not survive, prematurely placed the royal crown upon his own head. Tigranus recovered and had his son executed for usurping the crown. While Tigranus was building a greater Armenia, Rome was consumed by civil war between the factions of Marius and Sulla. But in 74 BC, a new war broke out between Rome and the Kingdom of Pontus. The Romans once again turned their attention to the east, placing the campaign in the hands of the experienced general Lucullus. Before long, Tigranus was drawn into the conflict as well. His father-in-law, Mithridates VI Eupator, King of Pontus, had taken refuge in Armenia after suffering a series of defeats. In 69 BC, Lucullus arrived before the walls of Tigranokerta, and Tigranus marched to relieve the besieged city. The Armenians held a clear numerical advantage. While the Roman army numbered around 20,000 men, ancient historians claim that Tigranus commanded more than 200,000. That figure was almost certainly exaggerated, and even so, modern historians agree that the Armenian army probably outnumbered the Romans by at least two to one. Despite their superior numbers, the Armenian army was defeated. The Battle of Tigranokerta exposed the greatest weakness of Tigranus' empire. A large part of the city's population consisted of settlers who had been forcibly relocated from conquered Greek cities. They had no intention of defending their new ruler, and according to Plutarch, many of the inhabitants welcomed the Romans and even joined their side. During the siege, the defenders of Tigranokerta used crude oil against the Roman siege engines. It's one of the earliest known examples of incendiary weapons being used in warfare, but it was not enough to stop the Romans. After a brief siege, they captured the city. The treasury of Tigranokerta, containing around 8,000 talents of silver, fell into Roman hands. According to Plutarch, each ordinary legionary received 800 drachmaers and booty, an enormous sum by the standards of the time. After its capture, Tigranokerta was burned to the ground. But the war was far from over. In 68 BC, Tigranus faced the Romans once again, this time near the old capital of Artaxata. He suffered another defeat, but Lucullus failed to capture the city. Soon after the battle, the Roman legions refused to continue the campaign. Most of the Armenian treasury had already been moved to Nisibis, and the soldiers insisted on marching there instead of besieging a city that promised little plunder. Lucullus gave in. Nisibis was protected by double walls and was considered one of the strongest fortresses in Armenia. The siege, which began in the winter of 68 BC, lasted for nearly a year. Throughout that time, Guras held off the Roman army, giving Tigranus the opportunity to raise a new force. The Romans captured Nisibis only through a stroke of luck. On a winter night in 67 BC, a violent thunderstorm drowned out the noise of their assault. The defenders were caught completely by surprise, failed to organize an effective defense, and the legionaries broke into the city. Yet even this victory failed to solve Lucullus' problems. When he announced a new campaign, this time against Pontus, the legions mutinied for a second time. The soldiers accused their commander of sacrificing their lives for the sake of his own glory and flatly refused to continue the war. At the same time, Lucullus' political opponents in Rome were working to have him removed from command. All of this gave Tigranus several years of respite. That respite came to an end in 66 BC when Pompey arrived in the east. By then, one of Tigranus' sons had rebelled against his father with Parthian backing. Although the revolt was crushed, the prince, also named Tigranus, escaped and soon threw in his lot with the Romans. Realizing that the war could no longer be won, Tigranus agreed to meet Pompey in person. He removed the royal diadem from his head and laid it at the Roman commander's feet. Pompey picked it up and placed it back on Tigranus' head. Tigranus was allowed to keep his kingdom, but he was forced to renounce all of his conquests. In addition, he paid an indemnity of 6,000 talents of silver and rewarded the Roman officers and soldiers who had taken part in the campaign with generous cash payments. From that moment on, Armenia became a Roman client kingdom. The fate of Tigranus' rebellious son took an ironic turn. Pompey initially entrusted him with the rule of Sophine, but only a few months later, suspecting him of plotting against his father once again, he ordered his arrest and sent him to Rome in chains. He would never return home. Sophine, meanwhile, was restored to the rule of Tigranus the Great. Pompey then turned against Armenia's former vassals. Iberia, ruled by Tigranus' cousin, was defeated at the Battle of Pelorus. The Romans then invaded Albania. Plutarch records that women fought alongside the Albanian army, a story he associated with the legend of the Amazons. In the end, both Iberia and Albania acknowledged Roman supremacy. Tigranus died in 55 BC after reigning for 40 years. During that time, he transformed Armenia into the greatest power east of Rome, but the empire he had built proved short-lived. Nearly all of its conquests had already been lost before the end of his own reign. For the next century and a half, Armenia remained the battleground in the struggle between Rome and Parthia. Whenever one empire gained the upper hand, its preferred candidate took the Armenian throne. Whenever the balance of power shifted, so did the king. In 53 BC, the Armenian king Artevastes II supported the campaign of the Roman general Crassus against Parthia. The expedition ended in disaster at the Battle of Karhai, one of the greatest defeats in Roman history. Twenty years later, Mark Antony invaded Armenia. Under the pretense of peace negotiations, he seized Artevastes II, paraded him through the streets of Alexandria in golden chains, and later had him executed. It was not until the first century AD that Rome and Parthia finally reached a compromise. Under the Treaty of Rahandia in AD 63, Armenia would be ruled by kings from the Parthian Assarid dynasty, but only after their appointment had been approved by the Roman emperor. To seal the agreement, King Tiridates I traveled to Rome in AD 66. Emperor Nero, renowned for his fascination with Eastern culture, staged an extraordinarily lavish ceremony in his honor. During it, Tiridates removed his crown and laid it at Nero's feet. The emperor then picked it up and placed it back on the Armenian king's head. Thus emerged a system in which Armenia was ruled by members of the Parthian Assarid dynasty while acknowledging the supremacy of Rome. Time and again, both empires tried to break this arrangement by force, yet each ultimately returned to it. The compromise, however, did not last. In AD 114, Emperor Trajan resolved to bring Armenia permanently under Roman rule. His pretext was that the Parthian king Osroes I had placed his nephew Partham Osiris on the Armenian throne without Rome's consent. Trajan invaded Armenia, ordered the self-proclaimed king executed, and for the first time turned the country into a Roman province. The Roman army then advanced further east, occupying Mesopotamia and even capturing the Parthian capital of Ctesiphon. Rome, however, was unable to hold on to these conquests. Rebellions erupted across the east, and in AD 117, Trajan died. His successor Hadrian abandoned his predecessor's expansionist policy, withdrew the Roman armies, and restored the previous arrangement. Armenia once again became a client kingdom under the shared influence of Rome and Parthia. Half a century later, history repeated itself. In AD 161, the Parthian king Vulogases IV invaded Armenia, drove out the Roman-backed king Sehaemius, and installed his own candidate, Pecorus, on the throne. An attempt by the Roman governor of Cappadocia, Marcus Sedatius Severianus, to restore Roman control ended in disaster. His army was surrounded and annihilated, and Severianus took his own life rather than be taken prisoner. Only two years later did the Romans regain the initiative. In AD 163, they reoccupied Armenia, destroyed the ancient capital of Artaxata, and founded a new city on its site, Canapolis, or New City. Sehaemius was restored to the Armenian throne. The campaign was officially commanded by Lucius Verus, co-emperor alongside Marcus Aurelius. For the victory, he received the honorary title Arminiacus, although he personally played almost no role in the campaign. In AD 252, a Parthian nobleman named Anak, acting at the instigation of the Sassanian king Shapur I, assassinated the Armenian king Khosrov II. Anak was executed along with nearly his entire family. Only his infant son survived. The child was secretly taken to Cappadocia, where he grew up, converted to Christianity, and eventually returned to Armenia. His name was Gregory. As a young man, Gregory entered the service of Tiridates III, the son of Khosrov II. When the king discovered that Gregory was the son of his father's murderer, he ordered him thrown into prison. Gregory remained there for 15 years, surviving only because a Christian woman secretly brought him bread. According to tradition, Tiridates later ordered the execution of a group of Christian nuns. Soon afterward, the king lost his sanity and began behaving like a wild boar. Only after Gregory was released did his illness leave him. Tiridates then converted to Christianity and, in AD 301, proclaimed it the official religion of Armenia. The historical accuracy of these details is uncertain. The story was not written down until roughly a century and a half after the events it describes. The conversion of Armenia to Christianity itself, however, is beyond dispute. Armenia thus became the first state in the world to officially adopt Christianity, predating even the Roman Empire. The very name of the Armenian Apostolic Church points to an even older tradition. According to tradition, the apostles Thaddeus and Bartholomew preached in Armenia as early as the first century AD. The spread of Christianity, however, was far from peaceful. Christian communities had already existed in Armenia for at least a century, and early Armenian kings had persecuted them. After Tiridates declared Christianity the state religion, violent clashes broke out between Christians, followers of Zoroastrianism, and adherents of the traditional pagan cults. Temples belonging to the pagan nobility were plundered, and their treasures were transferred to the royal treasury. Most historians believe that Armenia's conversion to Christianity was motivated by as much politics as it was by religion. It distanced the kingdom from the Sasanian Empire, whose official religion was Zoroastrianism. By the beginning of the 5th century, Armenia had been a Christian kingdom for more than a century, yet one major problem remained. Church services were conducted in Greek and Syriac, and most Armenians understood neither the sermons nor the scriptures. The man who set out to solve this problem was the monk and scholar Mesrop Meshtots. After receiving an excellent education, he first served as secretary to the royal court before becoming a missionary. During his travels, Meshtots saw firsthand that the new faith remained inaccessible to most people simply because they could not read the sacred texts in their own language. At first, he tried to adapt an existing script, known as the Letters of Daniel, to the Armenian language. The attempt proved unsuccessful. Meshtots then traveled to Asia Minor, where he spent several years studying writing systems and consulting local scholars and calligraphers. In A.D. 405, together with Catholicos Sahak Partev and the Greek calligrapher Rufanus, he completed the Armenian alphabet. It consisted of 36 letters and was designed specifically for the Armenian language. The first text written in the new script was the opening verse of the Book of Proverbs, to know wisdom and instruction, to understand words of insight. The impact was profound. Within a single generation, the Bible had been translated into Armenian, followed by Greek and Syriac theological and philosophical works. Armenia had gained a written tradition of its own. The alphabet came at a crucial moment. Rome and Persia continued their struggle for control of Armenia, and the kingdom's independence was steadily slipping away. The last attempt to preserve it came with the defense of the fortress of Artaxerxes. After King Arsaces II was taken prisoner, Queen Porenzem defended the fortress against the army of the Sasanian Shah Shapur II for nearly two years. When Artaxerxes finally fell, the queen was executed. In A.D. 387, Rome and Persia agreed to partition Armenia. The western part of the kingdom passed to Rome, while the eastern half came under Persian rule. The Arsacid dynasty continued to rule on both sides of the new frontier for several more decades. In the Roman half, the last Armenian king died in A.D. 391. In the east, the dynasty survived until A.D. 428, where the Armenian nobility itself appealed to the Sasanian Shah to depose Artaxes IV. With that, the Armenian monarchy came to an end. The Sasanids appointed the first marzpan, or governor, and Armenia passed under their direct rule. Yet, after the monarchy came to an end, its greatest legacy endured, the Armenian language with its own script and the Armenian church. Together, they enabled the Armenian people to preserve their identity and distinct culture despite centuries of foreign rule. The Armenian Apostolic Church, which took shape during this period, still exists today and remains one of the oldest national churches in the world. It is headed by the Catholicos, an office that has existed continuously since the 4th century. Horvrap, where Gregory the Illuminator is said to have spent many years in captivity, remains one of Armenia's most important pilgrimage sites. The monastery also offers a breathtaking view of Mount Ararat, the defining symbol of historic Armenia. The Armenian alphabet, created by Meserep Mashtots in AD 405, has likewise endured through the centuries. Over the next 1,200 years, only two letters were added to the original 36, and Armenians continue to use essentially the same script today. The Armenian kingdom vanished, but its language, its church, and its alphabet outlived every conqueror.