Note 68 — Chapter XVI · EDGMIATSIN AND THE ARMENIAN CHURCH

II. What does my reader know about the ancient history of Armenia? At least he remembers the wonderful march of Xenophon (401–400 B.C.), who crossed the entire block of the Armenian tableland from the plains of Mesopotamia to the Black Sea. At that time the country was under the overlordship of the Achæmenian king of Persia—that splendid dynasty which was at length destroyed by a great wave from Europe, and of which the latest champion was murdered by a satrap of Bactria after his decisive defeat in the belt of mountains south of Lake Van by Alexander the Great (331 B.C.). The name of the Greek hero is still alive in Southern Armenia, sharing the honours in this respect with Solomon. Perhaps our next familiar memory will be the visit of Hannibal to the court of Artaxias, one of the numerous governors in the empire of the successors of Alexander, and a ruler whose territory embraced the scene of these travels.68 Nor are we likely to have forgotten the recoil of the East upon the West which took place under the leadership of the picturesque Mithradates, that strangely composite embodiment of two diverse cultures. Behind Mithradates looms the power of a great king of Armenia, whom, again, we know as a scion of a new dynasty which had arisen in Asia—the Arsakid or Parthian dynasty. With these Arsakid kings of Armenia we are fairly familiar; the Parthian archers ride unrevenged through the polished verse of Horace, and the Arsakids of Persia and Armenia supply the pages of Tacitus with several lively interludes to his throbbing narrative. Some acquaintance with these various events is part of the equipment of most among us—a little less or a little more. We may learn a great deal more of the subsequent history of Armenia; but from what sources shall we collect material for a fuller knowledge of the older period? The Armenian historians are all but worthless; the West was little inquisitive; and even now we can scarcely answer the leading questions: whence the Armenians came to the seats which they have occupied throughout the historical period, and how they fared in culture, in art, or in arms. Upon these subjects the Fool is almost as well instructed as the Wise Man; we search the mists in vain for any definite image; till from among them emerge the thrones of these Arsakids—a Northern or Scythian dynasty, holding Persia as well as Armenia, and crowning a polity which was of a strongly feudal type.69