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.[3]
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,[4] he was met by a native prince who bore the title of commander-in-chief[5] 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.]).[6]
Ashot I., A.D. 856–889 or 890.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.]).[7] 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.[8]
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.[9] He died in advanced age (A.D. 889 [C.] or 890 [D.])[10] 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.[11] 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.
Sembat I., A.D. 890–914.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[12] 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.[13] 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.