However that may be, Armenian history awards to Haik the proud distinction of having overcome and slain Belus, the mighty hunter Nimrod.
The people who retraced their steps from the plains of Shinar, and settled round the base of Ararat called themselves “Hai” after their chief, and they named their country “Haiyastan,” and these names still continue to be used in the Armenian, or “Haiyérane” as the Armenians call their own language.
GREAT AND LITTLE ARARAT.
I will pass over the periods when the son and grandson of Haik ruled over Armenia, and only mention that the mountain known to the world as Ararat was called by the Hai “Masis” after their king Amasia and great-grandson of Haik. To this day, Armenian peasants and others dwelling round Ararat, call the mountain “Masis.” I remember in my childhood having seen an Armenian periodical entitled “Masis,” which showed that the name had been steadily kept up.
I will again pass over the periods ruled by the successors of Amasia, and relate the story of King Aram, who ended his brilliant reign in B.C. 1796 after ruling over Armenia fifty-eight years.
He was a great and powerful prince, and extended his dominions, and grew to be so mighty in battle that the neighbouring nations called his country Aramia and the people were called Aramians, such names as Armenia or Armenians being no doubt later corruptions.
The first victory of Aram was over Neuchar king of Media, whom he took prisoner and put to death, and made a large part of the country of the defeated prince tributary to his own. The second victory of Aram was over Barsham king of Babylon, whom also he took prisoner and put to death. The next victory was over the king of Cappadocia; the army of the Cappadocians was pursued to the very shores of the Mediterranean, and the whole of Cappadocia fell into the hands of Aram B.C. 1796. Also Ninus king of Assyria, at one time an eager enemy, awed by the victories of Aram, sought to cultivate his friendship.
No doubt if the volumes and scripts of paper or parchment of the famous Alexandrian library, which burned for six months as fuel in the four thousand baths of the city, had escaped that most atrocious act of vandalism, and been preserved instead, vast treasures of knowledge now lost to us concerning the ancient kingdoms of Western Asia might be known in our day; and also when the tide of Islam victory rolled over the kingdom of Armenia, how much of the story and history of the people was lost and destroyed along with the destruction of their independence it would be difficult now to calculate or assert, but in taking up link by link of whatever knowledge has been left to us, there seems to be grounds for supposing that the “Aramæans” designated by foreign writers as “a people of Semitic race, language and religion, coming from Northern Arabia and settling in the region between the western boundaries of Babylonia and the highlands of Western Asia” were no other than the Hai who under their King Aram had spread their conquests and their kingdom into Mesopotamia and even to the shores of the Mediterranean.