Page:Lesser Eastern Churches.djvu/408

and reduced Armenia to its own boundaries in B.C. 66. It then became a helpless vassal state dominated alternately by Rome and Persia. These powers set up subject kings in turn. Trajan (A.D. 98-117) made the land a Roman province. But it came again under Persian influence. In 227 the Sassanid kings usurped power in Persia (p. 23) . The Armenian princes took the side of the deposed line (the Arsacides), and so their land was persecuted by the usurpers. A king of Armenia (Khosrov) was murdered in 238 (?) by order of the Persian Government, and a determined attempt was made to force the Persian state religion (Mazdæism) on the unwilling people. Then in 261 King Trdat (Tiridates) II, who had fled to Roman territory, came back, drove out the Persians, and again made the country independent, though with considerable real dependence on Rome. During this time Armenia became Christian. Julian's unsuccessful Persian war (363) and the peace his successor Jovian (363-364) was forced to make after it, again handed over Armenia to the Persians. King Arshak (Arsaces) was deposed, carried off to Persia, and there died in captivity. The Emperor Valens (364-378) was able to restore what was a valuable bulwark-state to the empire, and made Arshak's son Pap king (367-374). Theodosius (379-395) made the deplorable mistake of dividing Armenia between Rome and Persia; whereas he should, at any cost, have maintained a strong kingdom between the empire and its enemy. Manuel of Mamikon (378-385) was the last real king. In the division Persia got four-fifths of Armenia, Rome only a small corner in the West. Tributary kings, hardly more than titular, ruled now under Persian supremacy till 428; then the Persians deposed them and sent governors to hold the country. Armenia was now all Christian, hated the persecuting Persians; its sympathies were all for the Christian Empire. It rebelled many times without success, till the Emperor Maurice (582-602) obtained it from the Persian King, and again made it a Roman province. So far we have seen Armenia bandied about between Rome and Persia. Then came the Arabs. About the year 639 they invaded the country from Mesopotamia and ravaged it horribly. In 642 they took the city of Duin, or Tovin, massacred a great number of its inhabitants, and carried off the rest into slavery. Now the unhappy Arme-