Note 50 — Chapter XVIII · ANI, AND THE ARMENIAN KINGDOM OF THE MIDDLE AGES

At the time when the Bagratid kingdom of Armenia was suffering from a fresh division of the regal authority under John Sembat and Ashot, the neighbouring Empire was administered by a worthy successor of Nikephorus and of Zimiskes. The Emperor Basil the Second stands out in the Byzantine annals as a monarch who did not disgrace the title of the Roman Cæsars. His personal intervention in the affairs of Armenia dates from the reign of Gagik the First, and was occasioned by the death of the prince of the Akhaltsykh country, David, who had during his lifetime been a fast ally of the emperor, and who had named him heir to his principality. Basil hurried to Armenia to take over his new possessions; he was greeted by the kings of Kars and of Van; but King Gagik excited his displeasure and provoked his resentment by somewhat pointedly remaining away. The Cæsar appears to have made a peregrination of the Armenian country, visiting Shirak, and perhaps occupying some of the fortresses in the south, such as Akhlat, Melazkert, and Arjish.50 Years later he was again summoned to the scene of his former successes; but on this occasion it was his duty to combat the folly of two Christian princes who had taken up arms against that Empire which alone could save them from their doom. King George the First of Georgia, in concert with King John Sembat of Ani, had been raiding in the imperial dominions. Basil established his camp in the plain of Erzerum, and summoned the Georgian monarch to submit. Upon the failure of his embassies he made his way by the plain of Pasin to the territory of Kars. The armies came together in the neighbourhood of Lake Chaldir; and if the issue of a furious engagement may have seemed uncertain, the result was established by the retirement of the Georgians into their strong places, and by the devastation of their country by the imperial forces, which included contingents of barbarous peoples such as Russians and Bulgarians. The emperor spent the winter in the neighbourhood of Trebizond, where he received an envoy from the king of Ani, no less a person than the patriarch, accompanied by twelve bishops, seventy monks, two scholars, and three hundred knights. The presence no less than the gifts of this distinguished embassy might have appeased the just wrath of the most Christian emperor; but his expectations were perhaps exceeded by the production of a testament in which John Sembat named him the heir to his dominions. This voluntary cession (A.D. 1022) secured the immunity of the kingdom of Ani; and Basil was free to exact his terms from the Georgian. Measures were taken to ensure the future safety of the domains of Akhaltsykh, and the imperial army was paraded upon the extremities of the Armenian country, carrying fear into the hearts of the inhabitants of Azerbaijan. Basil returned to his distant capital, having smoothed the way for the extension of the Empire across the natural bridge of the Asiatic highlands. The masters of Akhaltsykh in the north and of Van in the south could afford to wait for the death of a feeble and childless king.51