Roman Armenia

From the end of the 1st century BC onwards, Armenia was, in part or whole, subject to the Roman Empire and its successor, the East Roman or Byzantine Empire. Emperor Trajan created even a short-lived Province of Armenia between 114 and 118 AD.^[1]

History

Armenia was under direct Roman control as a province only for a few years under Trajan, but it had a far longer history as a vassal and client state of the Roman Empire for most of the first three centuries after Pompey's campaign in Armenia in 66 BC.

Struggle over influence with Parthia

With the eastwards expansion of the Roman Republic during the Mithridatic Wars, the Kingdom of Armenia, under the Artaxiad Dynasty, was made a Roman protectorate by Pompey in 66/65 BC. For the next 100 years, Armenia remained under Roman influence. Towards the middle of the 1st century AD, the rising Parthian influence disputed Roman supremacy, which was re-established by the campaigns of Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo.^[2]

This conflict ended after the Battle of Rhandeia, in an effective stalemate and a formal compromise: a Parthian prince of the Arsacid line would henceforth sit on the Armenian throne, but his nomination had to be approved by the Roman emperor.

Roman province of Armenia

In 114, Emperor Trajan incorporated Armenia into the Empire, making it a full Roman province.

From Antioch the emperor (Trajan) marched to the Euphrates and farther northward as far as the most northerly legion-camp Satala in Lesser Armenia, whence he advanced into Armenia and took the direction of Artaxata....Trajan was resolved to make this vassal-state a province, and a shift to eastern frontier of the (Roman) empire generally...Armenia yielded to its fate and became a Roman governorship..Trajan thereupon advanced and occupied Mesopotamia...and, like Armenia, Mesopotamia became a Roman province.^[3]

Indeed in 113 AD, Trajan invaded the Parthian Empire because he wanted to reinstate a vassal king in Armenia (a few years before fallen under Parthian control). In 114 Trajan from Antiochia in Syria marched on Armenia and conquered the capital Artaxata. Trajan then deposed the Armenian king Partamasiri and ordered the annexation of Armenia to the Roman Empire as a new province.

The new province reached the shores of the Caspian sea and bordered to the north with the Caucasian Iberia and Albania, two vassal states of Rome.

As a Roman province Armenia was administered along with Cappadocia by Catilius Severus of the gens Claudia.

The Roman Senate issued coins on this occasion bearing the following inscription: ARMENIA ET MESOPOTAMIA IN POTESTATEM P.R. REDACTAE', thus solidifying Armenia's position as the newest Roman province. A rebellion by the Parthian pretender Sanatruces was put down, though sporadic resistance continued and Vologases III of Parthia managed to secure an area of south-eastern Armenia just before Trajan's death in August 117.

After Trajan's death however, his successor Hadrian decided not to maintain the province of Armenia. In 118 AD, Hadrian gave Armenia up, and installed Parthamaspates as its king. Parthamaspates was soon defeated by the Parthians, and again fled to the Romans, who granted him the co-rule of Osroene in western Greater Armenia as a consolation.

Sohemus was named king of Armenia by Roman emperor Antoninus Pius in 140 AD. Just a few years later in 161 AD, Armenia was lost again to Vologases IV of Parthia. In 163 AD a Roman counter-attack under Statius Priscus defeated the Parthians in Armenia and reinstalled Sohemus as the Romans' favored candidate on the Armenian throne. Sohemus' tomb probably is the only actually well-preserved Roman temple in Armenia: the Garni Temple.

Thereafter Armenia was in frequent dispute between the two empires and their candidates for the Armenian throne, a situation which lasted until the emergence of a new power, the Sassanids.

Indeed Rome's power and control increased even more, but Armenia retained its independence (even if as a vassal state), although from now on, it was Rome's loyal ally against the Sassanian Empire. For instance, when Septimius Severus attacked Ctesiphon, many Armenian soldiers were in his army: later -in the 4th century- they made up two Roman legions, the Legio I Armeniaca and the Legio II Armeniaca.^[4]

In the second half of the 3rd century the Sassanid capital Ctesiphon and areas of southern Armenia were sacked by the Romans under Emperor Carus, and all Armenia, after half a century of Persian rule, was ceded to Diocletian in 299 AD as a "vassal" territory.^[5]

Eastern Roman Armenia

After the division of Armenia by the East Roman (Byzantine) and Sassanid Persian empires in 384,^[6] Lesser Armenia, along with western regions of Greater Armenia, became part of the Byzantine Empire. It was formed into a regular province under Diocletian, and in the 4th century, was divided in two provinces, "First Armenia" and "Second Armenia". Its population remained Armenian, but was being gradually Romanized.

Indeed in 363, a treaty was signed between the East Roman and Sassanid Persian empires, which divided Armenia between the two. The Persians retained the larger part of Armenia ("Persarmenia") while the Romans received a small part of Western Armenia.

Another treaty followed between 384 and 390, the Peace of Akilisene (usually dated ca. 387), which established a definite line of division, running vertically from a point just east of Karin (soon to be renamed Theodosiopolis) south to west of Nisibis in Mesopotamia. The area under East Roman control thus increased, but still, about four fifths of the old Kingdom of Armenia remained under Persian rule.^[7]

Unlike Armenia Minor west of the Euphrates, which had been constituted into full provinces (Armenia I and Armenian II) under the Diocese of Pontus already in the time of Diocletian, the new territories retained a varying level of autonomy. Armenia Maior, the northern half, was constituted as a civitas stipendaria under a civil governor titled comes Armeniae, meaning that it retained internal autonomy, but was obliged to pay tribute and provide soldiers for the regular East Roman army.^[8][9] The Satrapies (Latin: Gentes) in the south on the other hand, which had been under Roman influence already since 298, were a group of six fully autonomous principalities allied to the Empire (civitates foederatae): Ingilene, Sophene, Anzitene, Asthianene, Sophanene and Balabitene.^[10] The local Armenian nakharar were fully sovereign in their territories, and were merely required to provide soldiers upon request and to dispatch a golden crown to the emperor, as a token of submission. In return, they received their royal insignia, including red shoes, from the emperor.^[10][11]

The situation remained unchanged for near a century, until a large-scale revolt by the satraps in 485 against Emperor Zeno (r. 474–491). In its aftermath, the satraps were stripped of their sovereignty and their rights of hereditary succession, being in effect reduced to the status of tax-paying and imperially-administered civitates stipendariae.^[10][11] Emperor Justinian I (r. 527–565) carried out a series of comprehensive administrative reforms. Already soon after his accession in 527, the dux Armeniae (responsible for Armenia Minor) and the comes Armeniae were abolished, and the military forces of the Armenian territories subordinated to a new magister militum per Armeniam at Theodosiopolis.^[12] In 536, new reforms were enacted that abolished the autonomy of the trans-Euphrates territories and formed four new regular provinces. Armenia Interior was joined with parts of Pontus Polemoniacus and Armenia I to form a new province, Armenia I Magna, the old Armenia I and Armenia II were re-divided into Armenia II and Armenia III, and the old Satrapies formed the new Armenia IV province.^[13] In 538, the Armenian nobles rose up against heavy taxation, but were defeated and forced to find refuge in Persia.

In 591, the treaty between Khosrau II and Maurice ceded most of Persarmenia to the Eastern Roman Empire.

Later history

The region was the focus of prolonged warfare in the Byzantine-Sassanid War of 602–628. After the onset of the Muslim conquests and the Arab conquest of Armenia, only the western parts of Armenia remained in Byzantine hands, forming part of the theme of Armeniakon. Armenia remained dominated by the Arabs thereafter, and was ruled by a succession of Caliphate-appointed emirs as well as local princes.

With the ebbing of the Caliphate's power and the fracturing of its outlying territories into autonomous statelets, the Byzantines were able to re-assert their influence over the Armenian principalities during the campaigns of John Kourkouas in the early 10th century. In the first half of the 11th century, under Basil II and his successors, most of Armenia came under direct Byzantine control, which lasted until the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, when all Armenia fell to the Seljuks.

Roman Christianity

The influence of Christianity was felt in the 1st century after Christ: Christianity was first introduced by the apostles Bartholomew and Jude Thaddeus. Thus both Saints are considered the patron saints of the Armenian Apostolic Church.

Apostle Bartholomew is said to have been martyred in Albanopolis in Armenia. According to one account, he was beheaded, but a more popular tradition holds that he was flayed alive and crucified, head downward. He is said to have converted Polymius, the king of Armenia, to Christianity. Astyages, Polybius' brother, consequently ordered Bartholemew's execution.^[14]

Armenia became the first country to establish Christianity as its state religion when, in an event traditionally dated to 301 AD, St. Gregory the Illuminator convinced Tiridates III, the king of Armenia, to convert to Christianity.

As a consequence of Diocletian's victory over the Sassanids, all of Armenia was once again a vassal state of Rome by 299 AD: Rome secured in this way a wide zone of cultural influence east of Anatolia, which led to a wide diffusion of Syriac Christianity from a center at Nisibis in the first decades of the 4th century, and to the eventual full Christianization of Armenia.

Before this, the dominant religion in Armenia was Zoroastrianism (promoted by the Parthian/Sassanid Empire) and to a smaller degree local Paganism. St Gregory and his son Aristaces were successful in the full Christianization of all Armenians in the first half of the 4th century, mainly after Roman emperor Constantine legalised Christianity in the Roman Empire in 313 AD.

It is a well recognized historical fact that the Armenians were the first nation in the world to formally adhere to Christianity. This conversion was followed in the 4th and 5th centuries by a process of institutionalization and Armenization of Christianity in Armenia. Indeed St. Gregory the Illuminator became the organizer of the Armenian Church hierarchy. From that time, the heads of the Armenian Church have been called Catholicos and still hold the same title.

St. Gregory chose as the site of the "Catholicosate" the capital city of Vagharshapat (actual Ejmiatsinin) in Armenia and built there the Etchmiadzin Cathedral as a vaulted basilica in 301-303 AD (Vahan Mamikonian, Roman governor of Armenia, in 480 AD ordered the dilapidated basilica to be replaced with a new cruciform church, still standing in the modern Republic of Armenia).

The continuous upheavals, which characterized the political scenes of Armenia in the next centuries, made the political power move to safer places often related to the Eastern Roman Empire. The Church center moved as well to different locations together with the political authority, ending in Byzantine Cilicia in the 13th century^[15]

See also

• Marzpanate Period
• Roman Empire
• Lesser Armenia
• Legio I Armeniaca
• Legio II Armeniaca
• Mamikonian
• Roman Georgia
• Caucasian Albania (Present day region of Azerbaijan.)

References

Sources

• Hovannisian, Richard G., ed. (2004), The Armenian People From Ancient to Modern Times, Volume I - The Dynastic Periods: From Antiquity to the Fourteenth Century, Palgrave Macmillan, ISBN 978-1403964212, http://books.google.com/books?id=EeBKxex7QyUC 
• Kazhdan, Alexander, ed. (1991), Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-504652-6 
• Migliorati, Guido. Cassio Dione e l'impero romano da Nerva ad Antonino Pio: alla luce dei nuovi documenti. Editore Vita e Pensiero. Roma, 2003 ISBN 8834310659
• Mommsen, Theodore. The provinces of the Roman Empire. Barnes & Noble Books. New York, 1996 ISBN 0-76070-145-8