Is this surname of Manuel found in the Byzantine writers?
Note (36), [page 36].
Vahram is in the wrong; Andronicus, not Manuel himself was at the head of the army. (Chamchean, 306; Gibbon, iii. 344.) Thoros was on such rocks, as Xenophon in the Anabasis, speaking of the rocks of Cilicia, calls πέτρας ἠλιβάτους, “rocks inaccessible to every thing but to the rays of the sun.” Homer makes often use of this expression.
Note (37), [page 36].
This is a very obscure passage in the original. Vahram is no friend of details, and he is every moment in need of a rhyme for eal; who can wonder, therefore, that he is sometimes obscure? This passage is only clear, upon the supposition that Thoros divided the ransom among his soldiers. This is also stated by Chamchean.
Note (38), [page 37].
I do not know why Vahram calls Thoros all on a sudden Arkay, “king;” how the royal secretary exerts himself to draw a veil over the treachery of Thoros!
Note (39), [page 38].
Oscin is the father of a celebrated author and priest, Nerses Lampronensis, so called from the town or fort Lampron; he was born 1153, and died 1198. In the concilium of Romcla 1179, Nerses spoke for the union with the Latin church, and the speech he made on this occasion is very much praised by the Armenians belonging to the Roman Catholic Church. This speech has been printed at Venice with an Italian translation, 1812. (Quadro 94.) Galanus, as the reader may easily imagine, speaks in very high terms of Nerses (i. 325): “Cujus egregia virtus,” says he, “digna plane est, ut acterna laude illustretur, nomenque ad ultimas terrarum partes immortali fama pervehatur.” For us his most interesting work is an elegy on the death of his parent, master, and friend, Nerses Shnorhaly; he gives a biography of this celebrated Catholicus, with many particulars of the history of the time. Nerses Shnorhaly was not only an author and a saint, but also a great statesman.