sent into Armenia. The battle was fought on the plain of Avarair, under Mount Ararat. The much smaller force of the Armenians was defeated, and their leader, Vartan, was killed. But the obstinate resistance offered by rich and poor—men, women, and children— convinced the King of Persia that he could never make fire-worshippers of the Armenians. As the old historian quaintly expresses it, "The swords of the slayers grew dull, but their necks were not weary." Even the high-priest of fire saw that the Persians had undertaken an impossibility, and said to the Persian King:—
"These people have put on Christianity, not like a garment, but like their flesh and blood. Men who do not dread fetters, nor fear torments, nor care for their property, and, what is worst of all, who choose death rather than life,—who can stand against them?:
This battle was the Armenian Marathon, and the national songs are full of allusions to it. To-day, after fifteen hundred years, the mountaineers of the Caucasus, at their festivals, still drink the health of Vartan next after that of the Catholicos, or head of their church. From time immemorial it has been the custom in Armenian schools to celebrate the anniversary of the battle with songs and recitations and to wreathe the picture of Vartan with red flowers. Of late years this celebration has been forbidden by the Russian and Turkish governments.
In the minds of the common people, all sorts of picturesque superstitions still cluster around that battlefield. A particular kind of red flowers grow there, that are found nowhere else, and it is believed that they sprang from the blood of the Christian army. A
