Representations of Rulership in Late Antique Armenia

Abstract

It should come as little surprise to discover that late antique Armenian literature preserves multiple constructions of rulership. Armenia experienced a series of major political, social and cultural transformations between the fourth and seventh centuries, as the twin powers of Rome and Persia confronted one another across this highly contested space. Represented as independent at the start of the fourth century, the Arsacid kingdom of Armenia was partitioned between the two powers in c. 387 ce, each installing a member of the Arsacid line as king. In the Roman sector, this practice was quickly discontinued but it persisted in the Persian sector until the deposition of king Artašēs in 428 ce. Thereafter every district of the former kingdom was under the notional control of Rome or Sasanian Persia and incorporated, to a greater or lesser extent, into their networks of government, administration and law. The balance of power remained remarkably stable for the following century and a half, with some four-fifths of historic Armenia under Persian hegemony, until the outbreak of war in 572 ce. From then on, as relations deteriorated, the situation became fluid. Both powers secured temporary control over swathes of Armenian territory – the Romans through negotiation in 591 and again in 630 as the Sasanian state imploded, the Persians in 607 after four years of warfare.1 The two decades after 640 witnessed a complex series of campaigns, raids and counter-measures undertaken by Roman, Armenian, and Arab forces. These culminated in Roman troops being driven westwards, beyond the river Euphrates, probably in 661.2 Yet even this event did not mark the end of Roman engagement. Not only did Roman military operations across Armenia revive in 685 and continue for the next three decades; several compositions completed, translated, or reworked at this time contain representations of Roman rulership, conceptualised in historical and ecclesiastical terms, suggesting that this model of authority held meaning and significance in a contemporary Armenian context.3