Note (2) — 13.—Weyasit conquers Lesser Armenia.

(2.) “Tarathan.”—It is by the name of Tabarten that Eastern writers know this prince, who, at that time, possessed the city of Erzingan; whilst Clavigo, who enters into numerous details on the private affairs of the “gran Caballero”, calls him Zaratan. The residence of this ruler was near the Kara-sou, at that time the great western arm of the Euphrates, at a place called by the Turks, Erznga or Eznga, a name derived from the Armenian, Eriza, as I am informed by Bishop Aïvazoffsky of the Armenian church at Theodosia. According to Marco Polo, who called it Arzinga (Yule, 2nd edit., i, 47), it was the capital of Greater Armenia, Sis being that of Lesser Armenia. The apparent contradiction in our author’s statements arises from the fact that, in another chapter, he represents Sis, Erzingan, and Tiflis, as being the chief towns of the three divisions of Armenia. The first belonged to the sultan of Egypt; the others to the Timourides, actually to Shah Rokh, the son of Timour. In ancient times, Erzingan was celebrated for the temple of Anaïtis (Strabo, xi, 14, 16), destroyed by St. Gregory the Enlightener. Procopius calls the place, Aurea Comana, and tells us that it contained a temple of Artemis, founded, according to tradition, by Orestes and Iphigenia; a temple already transformed into a Christian church at the time he wrote (De Bell. Pers., i, 177; Ritter, Die Erdkunde, etc., x, 774).