The northwestern part of the Armenian Highland--containing Mount Aragats (Alaghez), the highest peak (13,418 feet, or 4,090 meters) in the country--is a combination of lofty mountain ranges, deep river valleys, and lava plateaus dotted with extinct volcanoes. To the north and east, the Somkhet, Bazum, Pambak, Areguni, Shakhdag, and Vardenis ranges of the Lesser Caucasus lie across the northern sector of Armenia. Elevated volcanic plateaus (Lory, Shirak, and others), cut by deep river valleys, lie amid these ranges.
In the eastern part of Armenia, the Sevan Basin, containing Lake Sevan (525 square miles) and hemmed in by ranges soaring as high as 11,800 feet, lies at an altitude of about 6,200 feet. In the southwest, a large depression--the Ararat Plain--lies at the foot of Mount Aragats and the Geghama Range; the Aras River cuts this important plain into halves, the northern half lying in Armenia and the southern in Anatolia and Persia.
The region is subject to damaging earthquakes.
Most of the rivers fall into the drainage area of the Aras (itself a tributary of the Kura River of the Caspian Basin), which, for 300 miles (480 kilometers), forms a natural boundary between Armenia and Anatolia and Iran.
The Aras' main left-bank tributaries, the Akhuryan (130 miles), the Hrazdan (90 miles), the Arpa (80 miles), and the Vorotan (Bargyushad; 111 miles), serve to irrigate most of Armenia. The tributaries of the Kura--the Debed (109 miles), the Aghstev (80 miles), and others--pass through Armenia's northeastern regions. Lake Sevan, with a capacity in excess of 9 cubic miles (39 cubic kilometers) of water, is fed by dozens of rivers, but only the Hrazdan leaves its confines.
Armenia is rich in springs and wells, some of which possess medicinal properties.
The ranges of the Lesser Caucasus prevent humid air masses from reaching the inner regions of Armenia. On the mountain slopes, at elevations from 4,600 to 6,600 feet, yearly rainfall approaches 32 inches (800 millimeters), while the sheltered inland hollows and plains receive only 8 to 16 inches of rainfall a year.
The climate changes with elevation, ranging from the dry subtropical and dry continental types found in the plain and in the foothills up to a height of 3,000 to 4,600 feet, to the cold type above the 6,600-foot mark.
The semidesert landscape, ascending to an elevation of 4,300 to 4,600 feet, consists of a slightly rolling plain covered with scanty vegetation, mostly sagebrush. The vegetation includes drought-resisting plants such as juniper, sloe, dog rose, and honeysuckle. The boar, wildcat, jackal, adder, gurza (a venomous snake), scorpion, and, more rarely, the leopard inhabit this region.
Steppes predominate in Armenia. They start at altitudes of 4,300 to 4,600 feet, and in the northeast they ascend to 6,200 to 6,600 feet. In the central region they reach 6,600 to 7,200 feet and in the south are found as high as 7,900 to 8,200 feet. In the lower altitudes the steppes are covered with drought-resistant grasses, while the mountain slopes are overgrown with thorny bushes and juniper.
The forest zone lies in the southeast of Armenia, at altitudes of 6,200 to 6,600 feet, where the humidity is considerable, and also in the northeast, at altitudes of 7,200 to 7,900 feet. Occupying nearly one-tenth of Armenia, the northeastern forests are largely beech. Oak forests predominate in the southeastern regions, where the climate is drier, and in the lower part of the forest zone hackberry, pistachio, honeysuckle, and dogwood grow. The animal kingdom is represented by the Syrian bear, wildcat, lynx, and squirrel. Birds--woodcock, robin, warbler, titmouse, and woodpecker--are numerous.
The alpine zone lies above 6,600 feet, with stunted grass providing good summer pastures. The fauna is rich; the abundant birdlife includes the mountain turkey, horned lark, and bearded vulture, while the mountains also harbor the bezoar goat and the mountain sheep, or mouflon.
Finally, the alpine tundra, with its scant cushion plants, covers only limited mountain areas and solitary peaks.
The population density is highest in the Ararat Plain. The river valleys in the southeast and northeast are the next most densely populated areas. Half the population is concentrated in the zone marked by an upper altitudinal limit of 3,300 feet, which makes up only about one-tenth of the entire territory. Many people also live in the foothills, at altitudes of 3,300-4,900 feet, and in the mountains (4,900-6,600 feet). These regions account for a further third of the entire population. The high ranges and mountains are lightly populated; no one resides above 7,800 feet.
The high country to the north of Shirak and in the Zangezur region has small hamlets that lie in secluded glens, on riverbanks, and near springs; in the plain, such settlements cluster around mountain streams and irrigation canals, amid orchards and vineyards.
The Hayk, as the Armenians name themselves (the term Armenian is probably the result of an Iranian or Greek confusion of them with the Aramaeans), were not able to achieve the power and independence of their predecessors and were first rapidly incorporated by Cyaxares into the Median empire and then annexed with Media by Cyrus II the Great to form part of the Achaemenian Empire of Persia (c. 550 BC). The country is mentioned as Armina and Armaniya in the Bisitun inscription of Darius I the Great (ruled 522-486 BC) and, according to the 5th-century Greek historian Herodotus, formed part of the 13th satrapy (province) of Persia, the Alarodioi forming part of the 18th. Xenophon's Anabasis, recounting the adventures of Greek mercenaries in Persia, describes the local government about 400 BC as being in the hands of village headmen, part of whose tribute to the Persian king consisted of horses. Armenia continued to be governed by Persian or native satraps until its absorption into the Macedonian empire of Alexander the Great (331) and its successor, the Seleucid empire (301).
Under Tigranes, Armenia ascended to a pinnacle of power unique in its history and became, albeit briefly, the strongest state in the Roman east. Extensive territories were taken from the kingdom of Parthia in Iran, which was compelled to sign a treaty of alliance. Iberia (Georgia), Albania, and Atropatene had already accepted Tigranes' suzerainty when the Syrians, tired of anarchy, offered him their crown (83 BC). Tigranes penetrated as far south as Ptolemais (modern 'Akko, Israel).
Although Armenian culture at the time of Tigranes was Iranian, as it had been and as it was fundamentally to remain for many centuries, Hellenic scholars and actors found a welcome at the Armenian court. The Armenian empire lasted until Tigranes became involved in the struggle between his father-in-law, Mithradates VI of Pontus, and Rome. The Roman general Lucius Licinius Lucullus captured Tigranocerta, Tigranes' new capital, in 69 BC. He failed to reach Artashat, but in 66 the legions of Pompey, aided by one of Tigranes' sons, succeeded, compelling the king to renounce Syria and other conquests in the south and to become an ally of Rome. Armenia became a buffer state, and often a battlefield, between Rome and Parthia. Maneuvering between larger neighbors, the Armenians gained a reputation for deviousness; the Roman historian Tacitus called them an ambigua gens ("ambiguous people").
Tiridates II's resistance to the Sasanids after the fall of the Arsacid dynasty in Persia (224) ended in his assassination by their agent Anak the Parthian (c. 238) and in the conquest of Armenia by Shapur I, who placed his vassal Artavazd on the throne (252). Under Diocletian, the Persians were forced to relinquish Armenia, and Tiridates III, the son of Tiridates II, was restored to the throne under Roman protection (c. 287); his reign determined the course of much of Armenia's subsequent history, and his conversion by St. Gregory the Illuminator and the adoption of Christianity as the state religion (c. 314) created a permanent gulf between Armenia and Persia. The Armenian patriarchate became one of the surest stays of the Arsacid monarchy and the guardian of national unity after its fall. The chiefs of Armenian clans, called nakharars, held great power in Armenia, limiting and threatening the influence of the king.
The dissatisfaction of the nakharars with Arshak II led to the division of Armenia into two sections, Byzantine Armenia and Persarmenia (c. 390). The former, comprising about one-fifth of Armenia, was rapidly absorbed into the Byzantine state, to which the Armenians came to contribute many emperors and generals. Persarmenia continued to be ruled by an Arsacid in Dvin, the capital after the reign of Khosrow II (330-339), until the deposition of Artashes IV and his replacement by a Persian marzpan (governor) at the request of the nakharars (428). Although the Armenian nobles had thus destroyed their country's sovereignty, a sense of national unity was furthered by the development of an Armenian alphabet and a national Christian literature; culturally, if not politically, the 5th century was a golden age.
The revolt of 481-484 led by Vahan Mamikonian, Vardan's nephew, secured religious and political freedom for Armenia in return for military aid to Persia, and with the appointment of Vahan as marzpan the Armenians were again largely the arbiters of their own affairs. Their independence was further asserted in 554, when the second Council of Dvin rejected the dyophysite formula of the Council of Chalcedon (451), a decisive step that cut them off from the West as surely as they were already ideologically severed from the East. (According to the dyophysite formula, Christ, the Son of God, consists of two natures, "without confusion, without change, without separation, without division.")
In 536 Justinian I reorganized Byzantine Armenia into four provinces, and, by suppressing the power of the Armenian nobles and by transferring population, he completed the work of Hellenizing the country. In 591 its territory was extended eastward by the emperor Maurice as the price of reestablishing Khosrow II on the throne of Persia. After transporting many Armenians to Thrace, Maurice (according to the Armenian historian Sebeos) advised the Persian king to follow his example and to send "this perverse and unruly nation, which stirs up trouble between us" to fight on his eastern front. During the war between the emperor Phocas and Khosrow, the Persians occupied Byzantine Armenia and appointed a series of marzpans, only to be ousted by the emperor Heraclius in 623. In 628, after the fall of Khosrow, the Persians appointed an Armenian noble, Varaztirotz Bagratuni, as governor. He quickly brought Armenia under Byzantine rule but was exiled for plotting against Heraclius (635).
Theodor's successor, Hamazasp Mamikonian, sided with Byzantium, but after 661 Arab suzerainty was reestablished, although Byzantine-Arab rivalry, Armenian resistance, and reluctance to pay the tribute made the region difficult to govern. An unsuccessful revolt led by Mushegh Mamikonian (771-772) resulted in the virtual extinction of the Mamikonians as a political force in Armenia and in the emergence of the Bagratunis and Artsrunis as the leading noble families. The Arabs' choice in 806 of Ashot Bagratuni the Carnivorous to be prince of Armenia marked the establishment of his family as the chief power in the land. The governor Smbat Ablabas Bagratuni remained loyal to the caliph al-Mutawakkil when al-Mutawakkil sent his general Bugha al-Kabir to bring the rebellious nakharars to submission, although Smbat, too, was dispatched in 855 with the rest of the captive nobles to Samarra`.
The election by the nobles of Smbat's son Ashot I the Great, who had been accepted as "prince of princes" by the Arabs in 862, to be king of Armenia in 885 was recognized by both caliph and emperor. Throughout the 10th century, art and literature flourished. Ashot III the Merciful (952-977) transferred his capital to Ani and began to make it into one of the architectural gems of the Middle Ages.
The Bagratids of Ani, who bore the title of shahanshah ("king of kings"), first conferred upon Ashot II the Iron by the caliph in 922, were not the sole rulers of Armenia. In 908 the Artsruni principate of Vaspurakan became a kingdom recognized by the caliph; in 961 Mushegh, the brother of Ashot III, founded the Bagratid kingdom of Kars; and in 970 the prince of Eastern Siuniq declared himself a king.
By the time of the Seljuq invasions in the 11th century, the Armenian kingdoms had already been destroyed from the west. The province of Taron had been annexed to the Byzantine Empire in 968, and the expansionist policy of Basil II finally extinguished Armenian independence. The possessions of David of Tayq were annexed in 1000, and the kingdom of Vaspurakan in 1022. In the latter year, the Bagratid king of Ani, Yovhannes-Smbat, was compelled to make the emperor heir to his estates, and in 1045, despite the resistance of Gagik II, Ani was seized by Constantine IX Monomachus.
The Byzantine conquest was short-lived: in 1048 Togrul led the first Seljuq raid into Armenia, in 1064 Ani and Kars fell to Alp-Arslan, and after the Battle of Manzikert (1071) most of the country was in Turkish hands. In 1072 the Kurdish Shaddadids received Ani as a fief. A few native Armenian rulers survived for a time in the Kiurikian kingdom of Lori, the Siuniqian kingdom of Baghq or Kapan, and the principates of Khachen (Artzakh) and Sasun. In the 12th century many former Armenian regions became parts of Georgia, and between 1236 and 1242 the whole of Armenia and Georgia fell into the hands of the Mongols. Armenian life and learning, centered around the church, continued in monasteries and village communities.
Intermarriage with Frankish crusading families from the West was common, and Frankish religious, political, and cultural influence, though resisted by many barons, was strong. Levon reformed his court and kingdom on Western models, and many French terms entered the language. Little Armenia played an important role in the trade of the Venetians and Genoese with the East, and the port of Lajazzo (on the Gulf of Iskenderun) rivaled Alexandria. Levon left no son, and the throne passed to his daughter Zabel. Her first husband, Philip of Antioch, who refused to accept the Armenian faith--Levon's lip service to Rome as the price of his coronation being largely ignored--was deposed by the barons, and the regent Constantine, who was baron of Lambron and a descendant of Oshin, arranged the marriage of Zabel to his son Hetum (Hayton, or Hethum) I (1226-69), the first of the Hetumid dynasty. Hetum employed the Mongols against the growing menace of the Mamluks of Egypt and was present with the Mongol army that entered the Syrian cities of Aleppo and Damascus in 1260. His successors followed his policy, but the Mongols weakened and, after their defeat in 1303 near Damascus, were unable to protect Cilicia.
On the death, without heir, of Levon V, the crown passed to Guy de Lusignan, the eldest son of Hetum II's sister Zabel and her husband Amaury de Lusignan (Amalric of Cyprus). He was assassinated by the barons in 1344 for doctrinal reasons, and the next two kings, Constantine IV and V, were elected from their own ranks. On the assassination of Constantine V, the crown passed again to a Lusignan, to Guy's nephew Levon VI (or V; 1374-75). By this time, as a result of the Mamluk advance, little remained of Armenia except Sis and Anazarbus; Lajazzo had finally fallen in 1347, followed by Adana, Tarsus, and the Cilician plain in 1359. In 1375 the capital of Sis fell to the Mamluks, and the last king of Armenia was captured; ransomed in 1382, he died in Paris in 1393. The title "King of Armenia" passed to the kings of Cyprus, thence to the Venetians, and was later claimed by the house of Savoy, but from the end of the 14th century the history of Armenia as separate states is replaced by the history of Armenians under foreign domination.
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