Note 67 — Chapter IV · VAN

With the single exception of the remains of a mosque enriched with traceries and Arabic legends in a style worthy of the best traditions of Saracenic art, there remains no vestige in Van of any period of prosperity and splendour subsequent to the era of the pre-Armenian kings. It is true that the whole region is subject to seismic influences, and that many of the monuments of later ages may have succumbed through this cause. There exists a tradition that the isolation of the rock of Van itself is due to an earthquake in very ancient times, resulting in its severance from the heights adjacent on the east. Several visitations of considerable severity have probably occurred during the historical period; thus we learn that in the year 1648 of the Christian era one-half of the wall of the fortified city, as well as churches, mosques and private houses, were shattered by successive shocks and fell to the ground.67 But it is at least doubtful whether posterity has been deprived of many treasures by this agency or by the scourge of such a destroyer as Timur. Van must have occupied a subordinate position among the capitals of the Achæmenian empire; and her ancient temples, together with the structures of her former magnificence, appear to have been demolished at a very early date. A restoration is ascribed to an Armenian king of the Haykian dynasty, who is said to have lived a little prior to the Asiatic conquests of Alexander the Great. But the very fact that this monarch is named Van, and is related to have rechristened the city of Semiramis after himself, invests the story with a fabulous character.68 Greater credit may be attached to the statement of Moses of Khorene that the place was rebuilt by the first ruler of the Armenian line of the Arsakid or Parthian kings.69 A colony of Jews, with the high priest of their nation, were settled in Van by one of his successors, the contemporary of King Mithridates of Pontus and his ally against the Roman Power.70 These Jewish captives appear to have prospered in their new seats; and about the middle of the fourth century of our era they are said to have numbered 18,000 families, who were again transported into captivity, this time into Persia, by the ruler of the new empire which had arisen in Asia, the Sasanian king Shapur.71 Neither Arsakids nor Sasanians appear to have laid much store by the city; and, indeed, the centres of political gravity in the Asiatic world had undergone a marked change since Assyrian times. The tableland of Persia had become incorporated into the imperial systems of Asia, giving ready access into the Armenian highlands. Europe had already appeared upon the changing scene of Oriental despotisms, and the real struggle was between the East and the West. When the Mohammedan empire of the caliphs had supplanted that of the Sasanian fire-worshippers, Persia and Armenia formed parts of the new structure. With the decay of the edifice it might appear that a fresh era had dawned for the Christian Armenians, supported on the west by their co-religionists of the Byzantine dominions, and capable of fortifying Van against the assaults of the Arabs operating from Baghdad and the lowlands in the south. In such circumstances was born the Armenian kingdom of Vaspurakan, which flourished for awhile during the Middle Ages, and of which this city was the capital. We have already glanced at its history while pursuing the annals of its contemporary at Ani, and have had to deplore the lack of cohesion among the Armenians at that period, which precluded them from playing a part of first-rate importance in the world movements of the time. We have seen the kinglets of Van bowing the head to the Seljuk invasion and creeping for safety into the bosom of the Byzantine empire.72 Perhaps we have not overlooked the picturesque interest of the pact they concluded, under which the heirs of the Romans took over the city of Sarduris and Menuas as an outpost of the civilised world. After the Byzantines had been carried away by the storm of barbarism the annals of Van, in so far as it is possible to follow them, are of scarcely more than local interest. The place must have settled down to that long spell of half-conscious existence under which it sleeps and heaves and moans at the present day. Its garrison of Turkomans offered a prolonged resistance to the armies of Timur; and, if the citadel was indeed virgin after the lapse of ages, to the savage Tartar belongs the boast of having torn her defences away. When Van was visited by a European traveller at the commencement of the sixteenth century, the Persian Shahs of the Safavid dynasty were in nominal ownership and a Kurdish chieftain in real possession of the fortress. This individual went so far as to coin money with his own stamp; but he was ejected after a prolonged siege by the general of Shah Ismail the First (A.D. 1502–24) and the inhabitants brought over to Persian allegiance.73 In the year 1534 the keys of the city were brought to the vizier of the Ottoman sultan, Suleyman the First.74 The Ottoman Turks thus became masters of a fortress on the side of Persia which they converted into one of the strongest places in their empire. In the seventeenth century it is said to have fallen to Shah Abbas I.,75 but it was recovered by the Turks. Their rule has perpetuated the abuses of the Kurds; and in the forties of the nineteenth century Van was again in the tender keeping of a rebellious chief of that turbulent people, Khan Mahmud.