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

buffer zone for his kingdom. The governor of Lesser Armenia, Mithradates, an ally of Parnak in Pontus, was not so inclined, however. As relations among neighbors deteriorated and the constellation of alliances led to wars between 183 and 179 B.C., Greater Armenia and Dsopk drew closer against Pontus and Rome.

The declining Seleucid empire encouraged Artashes I to preempt a potential threat, and in 168 B.C. he launched a series of invasions across the southern border into Mesopotamia, instigating a war with the Seleucid Antiochus IV Epiphanes.63 The latter first attacked Dsopk and continued his campaign farther into Greater Armenia. The military offensive posed a serious threat to Artashes I, but he defended the capital and maintained his sovereignty.64 However, Antiochus’s primary target at this time was Parthia. He made a final attempt at invading Parthia and Armenia in 165 B.C., but again he failed.65 Internal political crises weakened his position in the region at a time when the Arshakuni Parthians were in the process of consolidating power at Ctesiphon, their capital city in Mesopotamia,66 and Rome was not yet prepared for heavy engagement in the Near East. The dissolution of the Seleucid empire created a geopolitical vacuum, providing an opportunity for the Parthians, led by Mithradates I the Great (r. ca. 171–138 B.C.) and Mithradates II (r. 123–87 B.C.), to expand their domain over most of Mesopotamia and emerge as a dominant regional power,67 which ineluctably drew the Roman empire into the region.

Artashes I died in about 160 B.C., leaving behind six sons: Artavazd, Vruyr, Mazhan, Zareh, Tiran, and Tigran. His death coincided with the Parthian imperial drive to conquer the neighboring lands. The Persian army defeated Artashes’s successors, Artavazd I (r. 160–115 B.C.) and Tigran I (r. 115–95 B.C.),68 and forced Greater Armenia to pay tribute to Parthia in return for peace. In the meantime, however, political stability at home had enabled the Roman empire to redirect its attention to the Near East. The subsequent widening of Roman involvement in regional politics and greater control over Cappadocia, Commagene, and Syria, on one hand, and Parthian territorial ambitions, on the other hand, pitted the two empires against each other over Seleucid territories and Armenia. Neither Artavazd I nor Tigran I had the luxury of remaining neutral.69 In 96 B.C., Roman and Parthian representatives signed an agreement to partition these disputed lands, a partition that the Armenians viewed as a humiliating defeat at the hands of foreign powers and that Tigran’s son, Tigran II, sought to rectify. Upon his accession to power, Tigran II revived Artashes I’s expansionist policies and conquered the lands where his grandfather had failed. The Artashesian dynasty reached its zenith during the reign of Tigran II the Great (r. 95–55 B.C.).

TIGRAN THE GREAT AND PAX ARMENNICA

Tigran the Great had been held captive by the Parthians since the ArmenoParthian clashes, but he secured his release with a promise to surrender southeastern lands. Mithradates II of Parthia, who had married Tigran II’s daughter Avtoman and sought to strengthen his position in Greater Armenia, supported his father-in-law’s return to his homeland and enthroned him as successor to Tigran I. Family ties, albeit briefly, encouraged amicable relations.70 Immediately after the agreement of 96 B.C., internal problems in both Rome and Parthia created a political vacuum, allowing Tigran the Great an opportunity to reassert his own power and independence from the foreign conquerors. Undoubtedly, a key motivating factor in his expansionist thrust was to avenge past Armenian military defeats and humiliations.71 But the effective mobilization of his extensive military capabilities certainly required other essential ingredients as well.

Both domestic and external factors contributed to his imperial expansion. Decades of population growth had augmented the manpower available for the Armenian military. Further, the expansion in landownership begun under Artashes I had continued under his successors and contributed to vibrant commercial relations and rapid economic development, which in turn enabled the nobility to mobilize vast resources for external expansion at a time when Armenia was not yet fully drawn into East-West imperial scrambles for hegemony.72 External factors included the demise of the Seleucid empire and the failure of the Parthians, under Mithradates II, to strengthen their position in the region. Unlike Artashes I, Tigran the Great could not maintain good relations with Rome, in part because of his expansionist policies but also because Rome, determined to become increasingly involved in the region, would not tolerate the emergence of yet another military and economic competitor. European scholars have viewed western policies of Tigran as a mere extension of the geopolitical aims of his powerful father-in-law, King Mithradates VI the Eupator of Pontus. Tigran the Great, however, devised his own calculations and objectives for the strengthening of his economy and imperial expansion.73

Once secure in power, Tigran the Great launched a number of ambitious military campaigns. He directed his first operation toward Dsopk, which he conquered in 94 B.C., thus consolidating his power over much of the former Ervanduni territories.74 Tigran hoped to remove Dsopk (which he considered a second-rate kingdom) as a significant factor in regional politics, but his policy of outright annexation gravely complicated matters with Rome. The seizure of Dsopk threatened Roman interests in neighboring Cappadocia, although at this point the Roman army refrained from action. In 92 B.C. Tigran invited Mithradates VI to enter into a mutual security alliance regarding the kingdom of Cappadocia.

The agreement provided that Mithradates VI would gain control over the conquered lands in the region, while Tigran would receive the slaves and all movable goods. They sealed the alliance with the Armenian king marrying Cleopatra, one of the daughters of Mithradates VI. Encouraged by the alliance and in cooperation with Tigran, Mithradates invaded Cappadocia, drawing the Roman army directly into the conflict. Although the initial phase of Tigran’s territorial ambitions had not moved the Roman empire, his alliance with Mithradates and the latter’s annexation of Cappadocia provoked Roman intervention. General Lucius Cornelius Sulla was dispatched to defend Cappadocia, and while he and Mithradates were at war over Asia Minor, Tigran the Great in 90 B.C. recaptured the territories that he had earlier surrendered to Parthia in exchange for his freedom. Subsequently, he conquered the kingdom of Osroene and its capital city of Edessa (Orhai), Commagene, Cilicia, Syria, and Phoenicia, creating an Armenian empire stretching from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean.75 Exploiting the opportunity provided by Parthian internal weaknesses, he assumed the Persian title of shahanshah (king of kings).76

Like Artashes I, Tigran the Great also built a new capital city, Tigranakert (Tigranocerta),77 as the political, economic, and cultural center of his kingdom to symbolize the advent of a new Armenian imperial era under his leadership. The new capital, situated near the Achaemenian Royal Road, soon acquired strategic and commercial advantages as a growing center for international trade, while military victories and economic prosperity generated unprecedented wealth for the Armenian empire.78 Tigran’s empire encompassed a vast territory, rich in resources and slaves, dynamic economic centers (Antioch, Latakia, Damascus), and experienced civil and military administrators (Mtsbin became the imperial administrative center for the southern command)—all of which enabled the Armenian nobility to accumulate enormous wealth. The nakharar system was further solidified during the reign of Tigran the Great, as the empire expanded and provided opportunities for consolidation of power and wealth.79

This prosperity could be maintained so long as territorial expansion continued and the conquered peoples remained loyal to the Armenian monarchy and contributed to its treasury. Tigran II required the local leaders throughout the empire to provide soldiers for his army and taxed them heavily. He resettled large number of Jews and Syrians from the Middle East in the major commercial centers (e.g., Ervandashat, Armavir, Vardgesavan, and Van). By one estimate, over half a million foreigners were resettled in Armenia, and the commercial and industrial developments across his empire were managed by Armenians as well as by Jews, Assyrians, and Greeks. The use of such words as shuka (market), khanut

(store), and hashiv (account) indicate Assyrian influence on Armenia’s economic development.80 Nevertheless, throughout the major cities and the vast expanse of his empire, non-Armenian inhabitants remained his vassals, albeit in a loosely structured system. So long as his subjects pledged loyalty and paid their taxes, they were granted some degree of local autonomy.81 There were no guarantees, however, that the king’s subjects would remain loyal as political and economic conditions deteriorated. By about 70 B.C., the empire had become unsustainable for a number of reasons.

Tigran the Great and his supporters did not view the empire as an exclusively “Armenian” empire but rather as an international enterprise, whose beneficiaries could include all participants in its promotion and protection. This approach to empire-building contributed to the most serious structural deficiency: Its highly decentralized imperial administration. It not only relied too heavily on local nobilities in the conquered lands, but also on subjects whose loyalty to the Armenian crown were suspect. Both groups could claim to be loyal only so long as the benefits of loyalty outweighed the burdens of foreign imperial rule. Had Tigran the Great achieved the degree of centralization of power witnessed under Artashes I, he could have organized an empire that perhaps could have proved sustainable long after his reign. A related structural deficiency in the imperial scheme was the absence (perhaps due to the short duration of the empire) of a strong institutional arrangement to facilitate circulation of capital and benefits of commerce between the core and peripheral economies. The relationship was strictly unidirectional: Wealth acquired in the conquered territories served to enrich the royal treasury. Such shortcomings could be overlooked only so long as the two major empires, Rome and Parthia, did not challenge Tigran II.

THE FALL

Beginning in 79 B.C., changes in Roman military leadership stimulated a more aggressive policy toward the Near East. General Lucius Licinus Lucullus (110–56 B.C.), having succeeded Sulla, invaded Pontus and appeared ready to attack Armenia. Despite warnings of Roman intentions, Tigran the Great ignored the threat. The Armenian shahanshah had become too arrogant and refused to negotiate with Lucullus to avert a crisis. Rather than declare war on Armenia at this time, Roman officials secretly recruited alliances with the nobility at Antioch. Having secured the northern flank by 70 B.C., the Roman army led by Lucullus marched through Dsopk (Sophene) in the spring of 69 B.C. It crossed the Taurus on October 6 and attacked Tigranakert.82 During the battle, the local non-Armenian population sided with the Roman army, leaving the Armenians to fend for themselves. In his

book The Art of War, Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527), one of the most influential Italian political theorists, attributes Tigran II’s military failure to his excessive reliance on his cavalry. Machiavelli comments:

Tigranes, king of Armenia, brought an army of 150,000 cavalrymen into the field, many of whom were armed like our men-at-arms and called cataphracti [soldiers clad in iron mail], against the Roman general Lucullus, whose army consisted of only 6,000 cavalrymen and 25,000 infantrymen. When Tigranes saw the enemy army, he said, “These are enough for an ambassador’s train.” Nevertheless, when they engaged, the king was routed; and the historian imputes the defeat entirely to the little service done by the cataphracti, whose faces were covered in such a manner that they could hardly see—much less annoy—the enemy and whose limbs were so overloaded with heavy armor, that when any of them fell from their horses, they could hardly get up again or use their arms.83

To make matters worse, Tigran’s two sons, Zareh and Tigran, rebelled against him, and the younger Tigran fled to his father-in-law, the Parthian king Phraates III, who later provided him with an army contingent to invade Armenia.84 Having lost confidence in their king’s military capabilities, the Armenian nobility also rebelled, leaving the civilian and military leadership deeply demoralized. The Romans captured and destroyed the city of Tigranakert, forcing Tigran to withdraw from Syria and Mesopotamia; however, Lucullus failed to advance farther northeast to the region of Ararat and Artashat, thus enabling Tigran to recover some of his losses. Several factors conspired against Lucullus during his winter campaign to capture Artashat. A large number of his soldiers had been killed and wounded, while heavy snow and logistical problems (e.g., food shortages) impeded movement across the mountainous terrain. His troops, away from home and family for too long, refused to move forward and rebelled on several occasions. Rome could not tolerate such a loss and subsequently recalled Lucullus. Encouraged by the favorable turn in fortune, Tigran the Great and Mithradates retaliated by reconquering Pontus, northern Syria, and Commagene.85

Rome refused to relinquish its eastern policy. The appointment of General Pompey (Gnaeus Pompeius), at the time in Cilicia, as successor to Lucullus indicated Rome’s determination to continue its conquest of Armenia. Intrigue and ambition caused Tigran’s son, Zareh, who had already refused to defend his father, to ally with Pompey; internal rebellions had now considerably weakened Tigran’s hold on power. In order not to lose its influence in the rapidly changing events in Armenia, Parthia capitalized on Tigran’s sudden weakness and attacked from the east. Although the Armenian emperor defended Artashat against Parthian attacks, the arrival of Pompey made the two-front defense against the major empires virtually impossible. In 66 B.C., he finally agreed to sign the