Artashat

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Marble statue of a woman found in Artashat.

Artashat (Armenian: Արտաշատ; Hellenized as Artaxarta) is a city on the Araks River in the Ararat valley. It has a population of 35,100.^[1] It is the provincial capital of the Ararat Province in Armenia.

[edit] History

The city was founded by Artaxias I in 190 BC. Strabo and Plutarch described it as a large and beautiful city, terming it "Armenian Carthage". A focal point of Hellenistic culture, Armenia's first theatre was built in the city. Artashat remained the principal political and cultural center of Armenia until the fall of the Armenian Kingdom in 428. Incorporated into the Sassanid Empire, Armenia's capital moved northward to the city of Dvin, just south of modern day Yerevan.

Artashat is said to have been chosen and developed on the advice of Hannibal:

"It is related that Hannibal, the Carthaginian, after the defeat of Antiochus by the Romans, coming to Artaxias, king of Armenia, pointed out to him many other matters to his advantage, and observing the great natural capacities and the pleasantness of the site, then lying unoccupied and neglected, drew a model of a city for it, and bringing Artaxias thither, showed it to him and encouraged him to build. At which the king being pleased, and desiring him to oversee the work, erected a large and stately city, which was called after his own name, and made metropolis of Armenia." (Plutarch's Life of Lucullus)

Tigranes II was defeated by Lucius Lucullus in 68 BC at the Battle of Artashat, and the city remained a hotly contested military target for the next two centuries. Artashat was occupied by Syrian legions under the Roman general Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo in AD 58 as part of the short-lived first conquest of Armenia, and destroyed in AD 163 when Statius Priscus reconquered Armenia.

[edit] References

Vahan M. Kurkjian - Chapter XII - The Armenian Kingdom
B.N. Arakelian, "Les fouilles d'Artaxata : bilan provisoire", Revue des Études arméniennes, 18, 1984, pp. 367-395.