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History
The predecessor of the Kingdom was the
Satrapy of Armenia ("Armina" in the Old Persian, "Harminuya"
in the Elamite and "Urashtu" ("Urartu") in the Bablylonian
parts of
Behistun Inscription of
Darius the Great) part of the
Achaemenid Empire, which later became an
independent Kingdom under the
Orontid Dynasty with
Macedonian influence.
After the destruction of the
Seleucid Empire, a
Hellenistic Greek successor state of
Alexander the Great's short-lived empire, a
Hellenistic Armenian state was founded in 190 BC by
Artaxias I at its zenith, from 95 to 66 BC,
Armenia extended its rule over parts of the Caucasus and the
area that is now eastern
Turkey,
Syria
and
Lebanon for a time, Armenia was one of
the most powerful states in the Roman East. It came under
the
Roman
sphere of influence in 66 BC, after the
battle of Tigranocerta and the final defeat of
Armenia's allied
Mithridates VI of Pontus.
Mark
Antony invaded and succumbed the kingdom in 34
BC, but Romans lost hegemony at time of the
Final
war of the Roman Republic in 32-30 BC. In 20 BC,
Augustus negotiated a truce with the Parthians,
making Armenia a buffer zone between the two major powers.
Subsequently, Armenia was often a focus of
contention between Rome and
Persia. The
Parthians forced Armenia into submission from 37
to 47, when the Romans retook control of the kingdom.
Under
Nero,
the Romans fought a campaign (55–63) against the
Parthian Empire, which had invaded the Kingdom of
Armenia, allied to the Romans. After gaining (60) and losing
(62) Armenia, the Romans sent
XV
Apollinaris from
Pannonia to
Cn.
Domitius Corbulo, legatus of
Syria.
Corbulo, with the legions XV Apollinaris,
III
Gallica,
V
Macedonica,
X
Fretensis and
XXII,
entered (63) into the territories of
Vologases I of Parthia, who returned the Armenian
kingdom to
Tiridates.
Another campaign was led by Emperor
Lucius Verus in 162-165, after
Vologases IV of Parthia had invaded Armenia and
installed his chief general on its throne. To counter the
Parthian threat, Verus set out for the east. His army won
significant victories and retook the capital. Sohaemus, a
Roman citizen of Armenian heritage, was installed as the new
client king. But a result of an epidemic within
the Roman forces, Parthians retook most of their lost
territory in 166 and forced Sohaemus to retreat to Syria,
аnd in Armenia Arsakid’s dynasty was restored.
After the fall of the
Arsacid Dynasty in Persia, there succeeded the
Sassanian Dynasty which aspired to establish
control over Armenia. The
Sassanid Persians occupied Armenia in 252. In 287
Tiridetes III the Great, was established king of
Armenia by the Roman armies. He soon accepted Christianity.
The traditional date is in 301, earlier than
Constantine the Great.
In 387 the kingdom was split between the
East
Roman Empire and the Persians. Western Armenia
quickly became a province of the
Roman
Empire under the name of
Armenia Minor; Eastern Armenia remained a kingdom
within Persia until 428, when the local nobility overthrew
the king, and the Sassanids installed a governor in his
place.
By the second century BC the population of
Greater Armenia spoke
Armenian, implying that today’s Armenians are the
direct descendants of those speakers.
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