Note 3 — Chapter XVIII · ANI, AND THE ARMENIAN KINGDOM OF THE MIDDLE AGES

Two Armenian families of princely rank were conspicuous at that time. The Artsruni had extended their possessions during the domination of the Arabs, until they comprised a vast territory and some of the richest districts in the neighbourhood of the ancient city of Van. They claimed descent from one of the kings of Assyria, whose two sons were reputed to have escaped to Armenia after having perpetrated parricide. They drew their name from the lofty office which had been bestowed upon their ancestor, that of bearing before the Arsakid king the emblem of the golden eagle—an emblem which is cherished by the Armenian inhabitants of Van at the present day as the distinctive ensign of their city and province. The family of the Bagratuni or Bagratids had attained a position in the centre and north of Armenia which rivalled and perhaps surpassed that of the Artsruni in the south. Of Jewish origin, they were already powerful in the earliest Arsakid times, when they had been invested with the hereditary privilege of crowning the king. Their ancient seats appear to have been placed in the Chorokh country, in the vicinity of the town of Ispir. But this nucleus became lost in the territory which they subsequently acquired, whether by marriage or by conquest. The province of Shirak, by which is designated the extensive grain-growing district on the right bank of the Arpa Chai, was perhaps the richest appanage of their House; but they were masters of the Armenian districts on the side of Georgia, while towards the west and south their possessions at one time extended into the plain of Pasin and the fertile districts about the present town of Mush. A branch of this same family established themselves in Georgia—the salubrious uplands and rich plains at the southern foot of Caucasus, which are separated from the highlands of Armenia by the belt of mountains on the right bank of the river Kur. The Georgians, like the Armenians, professed the Christian religion, and at the period with which we are dealing were being harassed by the Arab caliphs. During the decline of the caliphate, when native impulses were revived in Georgia as well as in Armenia, the movement centred in a dynasty of Bagratid descent. This dynasty outlived that of their kinsmen in Armenia by many centuries. The Georgian sovereigns weathered the storm of Seljuk invasion in the eleventh century, which swept before it the feeble thrones of the Armenian monarchs. Perhaps they owed their escape in part to the geographical position of their country, removed as it was by a zone of intricate mountains from the highway of the Armenian plains. Yet their capital, Tiflis, fell a prey to the same sultan who captured Ani, the famous Alp Arslan. During the first half of the twelfth century they were successful in expelling the invaders, and a little later their kingdom was increased to the limits of an extensive empire during the reign of the great queen Thamar. The Georgian Bagratids maintained their throne until the end of the eighteenth century, when the last king renounced his crown in favour of the Russian Tsars.3