Vardan and his gallant partizans detestable. " This Vasak," says Elishey, ** found that Vasak; and their confederacy proved the ruin of their country." When Vardan and his friends a.d.45K heard of the calumnies that had been spread abroad by Vasak. and of the abominable acts consequent on his apostacy, they returned to Armenia, and again swept the country. They made an incursion into Seunies, the province of Vasak, where they destroyed many places, and captured numbers of prisoners. Consulting with €ach other, they released one of their Persian prisoners, and sent him as an ambassador to Hazkert, with directions to signify their willing- ness to serve him, if he would leave them unmolested in the exercise of their religion. The Persian monarch agreed to this, yet har- boured in his heart a deadly rancour against the Armenians ; and in order to execute the more easily what he contemplated, he resolved, at all events, to break the present union amongst them. With this object in view, he published a general letter addressed to all the christians living under his government, directing them to exercise the rites of their religion openly in all places.
The Armenians, having perceived the latent object of Hazkert, did not separate; but rather joined more closely, determined to prepare themselves for the worsts
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