Материал: Payaslian S., The History of Armenia From the Origins to the Present

emphasis on commercial relations, indicating the significance of the Cilician trade and economy in the region. The treaty also clearly attested to the diminution of Cilician independence, which in the wider scheme of Cilician history represented a qualitative change in the power relations between the two monarchies but also in the international status of the Cilician kingdom.

While the peace secured with the Mamluks for a brief period provided an opportunity to reinvigorate the Cilician commerce and economy and to rebuild the destroyed cities (Sis, Tarsus) and the major ports (Ayas), after Levon II’s death in 1289 the Cilician kingdom never enjoyed political stability and security.72 His eldest son and successor, Hetum II, was hardly prepared to lead the kingdom and generally exhibited weak character and indifference to the affairs of the monarchy. In order to strengthen his position, he arranged the marriage of two of his sisters into the royal families in Byzantium and Cyprus.73 Relations through marriage, however, could not provide the physical security his kingdom so desperately needed in the increasingly hostile neighborhood.

The Mamluk threat intensified during Hetum’s first reign (1289–1294) as Cairo launched a series of invasions against the Crusader states and Cilicia. Pressed by the military circumstances, Hetum II requested assistance from the ilkhanate, but the latter, absorbed in their own internal strife, were not favorably inclined. Hetum II also dispatched requests to Rome, England, and France, but European professions of solidarity with the Cilician cause did not translate into military support.74 The Armenian kingdom clearly lacked the military capability to defend itself and the wherewithal to extricate itself from the situation. When by the end of 1291 the major Mamluk offensives against the Frankish army in Acre eliminated the last remaining Crusader forces in the Middle East, the Cilician kingdom found itself virtually alone in the region to confront the Mamluks. In June 1292 the Mamluks, under Qalawun’s son Sultan al-Ashraf Khalil (r. 1290–1293), attacked Hromkla and took Catholicos Stepannos IV along with war booty and thousands of people as prisoners to Egypt. Like his grandfather, who had abdicated the throne after the military defeat in 1269, Hetum abdicated in 1293, and having converted to Catholicism, withdrew to a Franciscan monastery. After his brother Toros I’s short reign (1293–1295), however, Hetum returned to power (1295–1297).75 As one historian has noted, it is also possible that rather than fully abdicate, he placed Toros on the throne to ensure palace stability while he traveled to meet with the Ilkhan Ghazan (r. 1295–1304). Hetum II went to Maragha in 1295 to revive the Armeno-Mongol security alliance and, with Toros, to Constantinople the next year for a similar security arrangement with Byzantium. They stayed in the Byzantine capital for six months. In the meantime, one of their brothers, Smbat (r. 1297–1299), usurped the throne with the support of their

discontented brothers, and with the tacit support of Catholicos Grigor and Pope Boniface VIII. Hetum and Toros, not permitted to enter Cilicia, journeyed back to Constantinople and thence to the ilkhanate to rally support for their safe return home and for Hetum’s resumption of the throne. Smbat imprisoned both men at Caesaria in 1297 and ordered Toros strangled and Hetum blinded. In retaliation, Smbat himself was removed from power in 1298 by yet another brother, Constantine (Gosdantin) of Gaban.76

The fratricidal struggle for power and leadership instability in Cilicia rendered the weakening kingdom infinitely more vulnerable to invasions. To strengthen his position, Constantine I employed military force to neutralize the supporters of Smbat, but his brutal efforts to deal with opposition at home antagonized the nobility and distracted the kingdom from the external threats. The Mamluk attacks on Cilicia had continued during the 1290s, with Mamluk military leaders vacillating between immediate capture of strategic points (ports, cities, fortresses) and the grander scheme of total conquest. In the spring and summer of 1298, Malik al-Mansur invaded southern Cilicia. Some of his troops reached the port city of Ayas and pressed forward on the eastern banks of the Pyramos River northward to Sarvandikar and Marash. Hetum II, though nearly blind, took advantage of the military situation and with sufficient political support from the nobility overthrew Constantine and exiled both him and Smbat to Constantinople.77

Having eliminated the power struggle within his own family, Hetum exercised stronger control over policy during his third reign (1299–1307). In part responding to the Mamluk attack on Hromkla in 1292–1293 and in part determined to establish firm control over the church, he moved the catholicosate from Hromkla to Sis and installed the pro-Latin Grigor VII of Anavarza on the catholicosal throne. Further, in order to avoid future succession crises, in 1301 Hetum II appointed his nephew Levon III (the son of Toros), barely three years of age at the time, as co-ruler. For a brief period Cilicia enjoyed internal peace and stability, while Hetum pursued an activist foreign policy in support of the ilkhanate’s invasions against the Mamluks. Despite the fact that the Ilkhan Ghazan had converted to Islam in 1295, Hetum supported his Syrian campaigns of 1299 and 1301 to 1303 and occupation of Damascus. In 1302 the Mamluks resumed their attacks on Cilicia for a number of reasons, including the military assistance Hetum II provided to the Mongols and his refusal to pay tribute to the Mamluks. The latter were further rewarded by the succession crisis unfolding in the ilkhanate after Ghazan’s death in 1304, which, the Mamluks believed, would hinder future Mongolian military campaigns. During Ghazan’s Syrian campaign, Hetum organized an effective defense force, which included a Mongol contingent, and contributed to the defeat of the Mamluk army.78 The contemporary Arab historian al-Ayni commented on Hetum II’s military policy: “The lord of Sis hated the Muslims in his heart for what they

had done in his territory which had been taken from him, and for the destruction which had been laid waste, and for his men which they had killed, and for the raids which were recurring against his territory from the side of the Muslims. When he agreed to assist Ghazan, the lord of Sis came before Ghazan, and requested that he allow him to enter by al-bcb al-sharqd and to egress from bcb al-jcbiya, and place the sword between the two gates, and avenge [himself] on the Muslims.”79

Perhaps Levon III would have reformulated Cilician foreign policy in favor of closer ties with the Mamluks if he had lived longer and was given the opportunity to rule alone. But his reign was cut short while visiting, along with Hetum II (a Franciscan friar after his conversion) and other dignitaries, the ikhanate military command in Cilicia. The ilkhanate’s conversion to Islam during the reign of Ghazan and the anti-Christian orientation of his successors troubled the Cilician leadership,80 but in order to reconfirm their relations with the new government, Hetum, Levon, and their entourage traveled to Anazarba (Anavarza) in November 1307, only to be murdered by the amir or commander Bularghu. Sheer personal vanity had moved Bularghu to orchestrate the massacre. His hostility toward the Armenian leadership did not stem from the clash of abstract religious values. Rather, he had proposed the construction of a mosque in Adana; Hetum II had rejected the project and had criticized the amir in a letter to the brother and successor of Ghazan, Ilkhan Khar-Banda Öljeitü (r. 1304–1316), who in turn had chastised Bularghu. Infuriated by this humiliation, Bularghu ordered his men to kill the entire Armenian delegation, including Hetum and Levon. Thus abruptly ended the long and checkered reign of Hetum II and his young nephew.81

One of Hetum’s brothers, Oshin, succeeded him and Levon III. His reign (1307–1320) witnessed intense internal political instability as Armenians debated how to respond to the rapidly changing external circumstances. Oshin wished to remain on good terms with the ilkhanate, which, he expected, could serve as a counterbalancing force against the persistent Mamluk threat. He also sought to cultivate close relations with the European powers, and accordingly in a series of councils (Sis 1307; Adana 1308, 1309, 1316) he and his supporters decided to recognize the pope in return for economic and military support. Predictably, the Armenian Church vehemently opposed this pro-Roman policy. For his part, Oshin failed to convince Rome of his own ability to implement unification with the Roman Catholic Church. Having failed to secure papal support for his beleaguered kingdom, in 1317 Oshin confiscated the properties of the Hospitallers in Cilicia. Pope John XXII in a letter advised reconciliation with the Armenian king, but the Hospitallers refused. In 1320 Oshin offered to reinstate their ownership in return for military support, but the Hospitallers again refused.82

By then, Ertugrul (ca. 1199–1280), the leader of a Turkish state near present-day Ankara, had strengthened his position against the Byzantine army. His son, Osman I, founder of the Ottoman (Osmanli) empire, expanded the domain. Osman’s son, Orhan, captured the town of Bursa in 1326 and advanced to Gallipoli in 1345. Although his son, Murad, fell victim during the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, the victory secured soon thereafter by Bayazid, Murad’s son, enabled the Ottomans to consolidate their rule in the Balkans. They appeared posed to conquer the Byzantine capital, Constantinople. The invasions by Timur Leng (Tamerlane), which began in 1382 from Transoxania and advanced to Moscow and to the Taurus Mountains, briefly arrested the Ottoman expansion when in July 1402 his forces dealt a devastating blow to Bayazid near Ankara.83

THE END OF THE CILICIAN KINGDOM

Unable to secure a reliable alliance with a Muslim power in the region, and oscillating between competing proand anti-West factions, the Cilician kingdom rapidly degenerated into chaos at home and paralysis in foreign policy. The magnitude of the crisis became evident during the Armenian ecclesiastical councils at Sis (1307) and Adana (1316) under the auspices of the Cilician catholicosate. Several barons and clergy at the Sis synod decided to unite with the Roman Catholic Church, and the Cilician government and church leaders attempted to impose their decisions on the Armenian Church. In 1311 Bishop Sargis of Jerusalem, vehemently opposing subordination to Rome, rebelled against the catholicosate and established his own independent church.84 Taking advantage of the internal crisis in Cilicia, the Mamluks and the Turkomans of Konya attacked Cilicia, while palace intrigue and conspiracy led to the murder of Oshin in 1320.85

The reign of his son Levon IV (1320–1341) witnessed a significant change in the region’s geopolitical configuration as the Mongol ilkhanate collapsed in 1336, removing even the possibility of a proCilician leadership in the region. The death of the last ilkhan, Abu Sa‘id, in 1335 and continued struggles for succession and power partitioned Persia and Mesopotamia into smaller states. The beginning of the Hundred Years War (1337–1453) in the West further isolated Cilicia.86 In the 1320s (and with five to ten year intervals until 1375), the Mamluks launched a series of campaigns against Cilicia in part to capture the port city of Ayas. After the expulsion of the Crusaders from the Middle East, Ayas had gained in importance in East-West trade, as European merchants preferred to deal with the Christians there rather than with the Muslim Mamluks at Alexandria (who had only recently expelled the

Europeans from the region). Moreover, the customs duties on trade transactions at Ayas were considerably lower than those at Alexandria. The intensified competition between Alexandria and Ayas for European trade contributed to the Mamluk drive to conquer Cilicia and to capture Ayas, a policy achieved in 1322. The following year Levon IV was forced to sign a peace treaty at Cairo, which imposed heavy taxes on the Cilician kingdom. The Cairo treaty of 1323 provided that the Cilician kingdom pay to the Mamluks an annual tax of 1.2 million silver dirhams, 50 percent of the income derived from commercial transactions at Ayas, and 50 percent of the income from salt exports. The Mamluks, for their part, agreed to withdraw their troops from Cilicia and to rebuild the devastated infrastructure of the port city.87

The hostile environment enveloping Cilician foreign relations exerted a deleterious influence on the factional divisions at home. In reaction to the military defeats of 1322–23 against Mamluks, Levon IV pressed for a total alignment with the West. He tightened his grip on the political institutions by exiling or executing the anti-West officials, replacing them with members of the House of Lusignans at Cyprus. In order to solidify his relations with the Lusignans and thereby with the West, he also ordered the assassination of his own wife and married the Sicilian king Philip’s daughter, the widowed queen of Cyprus. Having secured his position with a nobility favorable to his pro-western policies, in 1331 Levon IV sent his envoys to Europe to revive the Crusader missions.88

The Mamluk Sultan Nasir, the son of Baybars I, viewed Levon’s policy as a clear violation of the spirit (if not the letter) of the Cairo treaty of 1323 and ordered Altun Bugha, the amir of Aleppo, to invade Cilicia. In 1336 and 1337 Altun Bugha’s forces seized a number of key Cilician cities (Mamistra, Adana, Ayas, and Tarsus) and looted their wealth. Again defeated by the Mamluks, Levon IV dispatched a delegation to negotiate yet another peace treaty. Sultan Nasir imprisoned some of the Cilician delegates and insisted that the new treaty extend Mamluk jurisdiction over Ayas and the territory east of the Pyramos River. Levon IV also agreed to terminate relations with Rome and France, but soon thereafter, refusing to abide by this treaty, he entered into negotiations with the pope. Before the negotiations were completed, however, Levon IV was murdered, probably by nobles who opposed his pro-Latin orientation.89

By then, neither the Rubenian nor the Hetumian houses had legitimate inheritors to the Cilician crown. The line of succession passed to Hetum II’s nephews in the family of Amaury de Lusignan of Cyprus. The Lusignan period proved highly unstable, as the new monarchy failed to establish a strong basis for political legitimacy. After two years on the throne, Guy de Lusignan (Constantine II [r. 1342–1344]) was killed in his palace at Adana along with 300 members of the French nobility serving him in Cilicia. Guy