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Ancient Armenia refers to the history ofArmenia duringAntiquity. It followsPrehistoric Armenia and covers a period of approximately one thousand years, beginning at the end of theIron Age with the events that led to the dissolution of theKingdom of Urartu, and the emergence of thefirst geopolitical entity calledArmenia in the 6th century BC. Highlights of this period include the rise ofancient Armenia as an important state inWestern Asia in the 4th century BC; a briefly held empire underJulius Caesar's contemporary theGreat KingTigranes II ("the Great"); the kingdom's official conversion toChristianity in 301;[1] and the creation of theArmenian alphabet in the year 405.[2] It concludes with the demise of the Armenian kingdom and the country's partition later in the 5th century, marking the beginning ofMedieval Armenia.
During theIron Age, in the region the ancientAssyrians calledUrartu (calledBianili by the Urartians themselves),[3] various tribal confederations and kingdoms emerged; these groups included theHayasa-Azzi,Shupria,Nairi, theMushki, and possibly a group retroactively referred to asArmeno-Phrygians.[4] In the 9th century BC, tribes from the vicinity ofLake Van established theKingdom of Van (Urartian: Bianili) to defend the highlands fromAssyria, effectively uniting the disparate tribes of the highlands into one realm and beginning the process ofamalgamation of its peoples.[5] The kingdom ultimately collapsed in the 6th century BC at the hands of invadingMedes, and a realm called "Armenia" emerged from the territory of the fallen kingdom shortly after.[6]
As the Armenian identity developed in the region, the memory of Urartu faded and disappeared.[7] Parts of its history passed down as popular stories and were preserved in Armenia, as written byMovses Khorenatsi in the form ofgarbled legends[8][9] in his 5th century bookHistory of Armenia, where he speaks of a first Armenian Kingdom inVan which fought wars against the Assyrians. Khorenatsi's stories of these wars with Assyria would help in the rediscovery of Urartu.[10]
It is unclear where theexonymArmenia derived from; the earliest ever record that can confidently be consideredArmenia appears in a trilingual Persianinscription asArmina in theOld Persian language and asHarminuya in theElamite language, whereas the older name for the region,Urartu, was used in theBabylonian translation (see:Name of Armenia).
Armenia emerged as a kingdom under theOrontid dynasty (Armenian:ԵրվանդունիYervanduni) in 570 BC, but had become a subject of thePersian Empire in 553 BC, as asatrapy. This period was marked with several Armenian revolts and struggles to gain independence from the Persian Empire.
The satrapy of Armenia became an independent kingdom in 321 BC, after the conquests ofAlexander the Great, but soon became incorporated as one of theHellenistic kingdoms of theSeleucid Empire.
TheArtaxiad dynasty (Armenian:ԱրտաշեսյանArtashesian) rose to power and replaced the Orontids as rulers of Armenia in 189 BC.
During this time, Armenia was divided into several regions and kingdoms ruled by Armenian dynasties:
During the eastern expansion of theRoman Empire, the Kingdom of Armenia, underTigranes II (Armenian:Տիգրան ԲTigran B), extinguished the Seleucid Empire, and between 84 BC to 59 BC, extended Armenia to reach the largest size it would ever become in its history, stretching from theCaspian sea in the east to theMediterranean Sea in the west. Tigranes' empire was short-lived, however, as it would be defeated by Rome, after which the succeeding kings of Armenia ruled asRoman clients.
Following the fall of the Armenian Empire, Armenia was contested between Rome andParthia. For centuries, Armenia would find itself alternating between being independent, underRoman rule, and underParthian rule (laterByzantine andSassanian, respectively). During this period, the Artaxiad dynasty was overthrown by the Romans in 12 AD, and theArsacid dynasty (Armenian:ԱրշակունիArshakuni) rose to take their place as the rulers of Armenia in 54. Although the Arsacid dynasty ruled Armenia, it would continue to be contested between the Roman and Iranian empires.
In 301,Tiridates III (Armenian:Տրդատ ԳTrdat III) proclaimedChristianity as the state religion of Armenia, making Armenia the first state to embrace Christianity as the official state religion.
Until this time, Armenians were usingGreek scripts to write. But they had an alphabet of their own.[11] The rise of Christianity in Armenia brought the need to express the Armenian language more clearly, but as these scripts were not well suited for the Armenian language, it made preaching theGospel difficult. This motivated a Christian theologian namedMesrop Mashtots (Armenian:Մեսրոպ Մաշտոց) to invent theArmenian alphabet in 405 and facilitate the spread of Christianity within Armenia and the neighboring kingdoms which Armenia had influence over (Iberia andAlbania).
After the division of the Roman Empire intoWestern andEastern empires, and the rise of theSassanian dynasty in Iran, Armenia would be on the frontier of theRoman–Sasanian wars. This would ultimately lead to the partitioning of Armenia intoByzantine Armenia in 387 andSassanian Armenia in 428, which would bring an end to the history of ancient Armenia, and begin the period ofMedieval Armenia.
In 1828, a French scholar, J. St Martin, [...] began to grope towards an explanation by connecting [Urartian cuneiform inscriptions] with the garbled legends preserved by an Armenian chronicler, Moses of Khorene (Moses Khorenatsi), probably of the eighth century A.D., according to whom the region was invaded from Assyria by a great army under its queen Semiramis who built a wondrous fortified city, citadel, and palaces at Van itself beside the lake. [...] It is clear that by the time of Moses of Khorene all other memory of this kingdom [Kingdom of Urartu], once the deadly rival of Assyria itself, had been forgotten and remained so, except for these popular legends.
The story [of the legend of Hayk] retains a few remote memories from tribal times, and reflects the struggles between Urartu-Ararat and Assyro-Babylonia from the ninth to the seventh centuries B.C. The tale had evolved through the ages, and by the time Movses Khorenatsi heard it and put it into writing, it had already acquired a coherent structure and literary style.
What had for some time attracted the attention of scholars, and had led the Iranianist Saint-Martin of the Académie des Inscription in Paris to send the young Schulz to explore these sites [in Van], was to be found written in chapter 16 of Khorenatsi's work.