Haik’s answer was to prepare for combat. The fights between Haik and Belus are minutely recounted. The dress of the two champions, their looks, their weapons, are all described in detail. At last Belus was vanquished and slain by his adversary.
Before the time of Moses of Khorene, Haik was known as a great hunter like the Greek Orion. In the passages in Job and Isaiah where “Orion” appears in the English Bible as the name of a constellation, “Haik” appears in the Armenian version.
The country that Haik conquered was named Hayastan, after him.
He was succeeded by Armenak, who extended the boundaries of his kingdom. This expansion is thus described by Moses of Khorene:—
“Armenak, taking with him all his host, goes to the north-east. He descends on a plain surrounded by high mountains, through which, from the west, murmuring streams flow. The plain extends towards the east. From the foot of the mountains gush springs no less limpid, mingling together to form little rivers, which, with gentle flow, run round the edge of the plain, parallel to the base of the mountains.
“But the southern mountain, with its white peak, at first rises straight up; afterwards it curves, looking beside the other heights like a hoary stooping elder amid youths.”
Armenak was succeeded by Aramais. This king took up his abode on a hill beside a river, where he built a town which he named Aramavir. The river he called by the name of his grandson, Araxes. He had a son, named Shara, who was a glutton and had an immense number of children. He sent him to a very fertile place which was called, after him, Shirak. Moses of Khorene quotes a proverb relating to Shara:—“If thou hast the gullet of a Shara, our stores are not the stores of a Shirak.”
Shara had a son, Amasa. After him Mount Ararat was named “Masis.”
Moses of Khorene mentions another descendant of Haik, whose name was Tork. He was ugly and of tremendous strength. He was able to break great stones with his hands. Once, when he was on the shore of the Sea of Pontus, he hurled huge rocks at the ships of his enemies and sank them. This incident reminds us of the Cyclops Polyphemus, in the Odyssey. Tork had also artistic proclivities. After dividing large stones with his hands, he smoothed them with his nails, and with his nails covered them with drawings of eagles and other pictures.[11]
Then the historian gives a table of royal names down to Aram, whom he describes as industrious and patriotic, and who said that he would rather die for his fatherland than endure the sight of strangers devastating it. He collected an army of 50,000 and drove the foreign invaders out of Armenia. Epic poems, according to Moses of Khorene, praise Aram’s valour in his conflicts with Barsham, King of Assyria, whom he eventually subdued. He was succeeded by Ara the Beautiful.