Course: History: Western Civilization Final Paper Grade: A

1. Torossian1
Jerome Torossian
Professor Leslie Dossey
History 101
25 November, 2014
The strengths of the Kingdom of Armenia in the 1st century BCE
Armenia, one of the oldest civilizations in the world, is a nation that saw its size
increasing extensively over the centuries through the help of many prosperous Armenian kings,
notably Tigranes the Great. Indeed, between 95-55 BCE Tigranes the Great took back the seven
Armenian valleys that he had awarded to the Parthians in exchange for his freedom and
“devastated their country, both that about Ninus and that about Arbela; and he subjugated to
himself the rulers of Atropene and Gordyaea, and along with these the rest of Mesopotamia, and
also crossed the Euphrates and by main strength took Syria itself and Phoenicia” (Strabo 339).
With these successful battles, Armenia stretched from modern north-eastern Turkey to
Mesopotamia and from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean. However, when we look at the
size of the Republic of Armenia today, we can observe that its territorial size cannot be
compared to the one under the command of Tigranes the Great. Unfortunately, most of its
historic lands are located in Eastern-Turkey, which were stolen by the Turks of the Ottoman
Empire during the Armenian genocide of 1915. In this essay, I will examine the particular
strengths of the Armenians during the first century CE that made this empire at one point the
most successful one in its region.
Strabo, the author of the multivolume book “The geography”, was born in the Kingdom
of Pontus either in 64 or 63 BCE in the ancient capital city of Ameseia, which is presently

2. Torossian2
located in modern Turkey (Roller 3). This author from the antiquity died between 21 or 25 CE in
his native region of Asia Minor. Unfortunately, the dates of his birth as well as his death remain
uncertain today and often become a subject of debate between historians. Strabo was a
geographer, a philosopher as well as a historian from Greek descent. The little we know about
Strabo’s personal life is through his work “The geography”. The author was born into a wealthy
family, which in the introduction of the book, it mentions that “Strabo must have inherited
considerable wealth; for his fortune was sufficient to enable him to devote his life to scholarly
pursuits and to travel somewhat extensively” (Sterrett 17). He pursued his studies in Nysa, which
is modernly named Sultanhisar, in the region of Anatolia under the famous rhetorician and
historian, Aristodemus.
Strabo’s extant book called “The geography” survived through centuries and is composed
of seventeen volumes. Obviously, Strabo’s intended audience for his work was people from
Greek descent who could read his native language, but also Romans. I declare that Strabo’s main
goal was either to create a book to his audience that would be useful or to create a piece of work
that could give details to certain leaders in the aim of making them understand the location and
the geography of the most important places on earth. In fact, it is mentioned in the introduction
that “the geography was also useful for those engaged in political and military activity” (Roller
24). In book eleven of “The geography”, Strabo mainly discusses the region of Armenia, Media,
the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus, Albania, as well as the Taurus River and writes about the
different climates, reliefs, history as well as the empires and people that lived in the region. In
the case of Armenia, Strabo describes it as a powerful kingdom, which is much protected by its
natural reliefs against eventual conquerors such as mountains of Parachoathras on the north “that

3. Torossian3
lie above the Caspian Sea, and Albania, and Iberia, and the Caucasus” and by rivers such as the
Taurus on the south that separates it from Mesopotamia (Strabo 319).
It was partly Armenia’s geography and its natural resources that gave it the potential of
being an important empire able to compete with major ones such as the Roman and Persian
empires. The Kingdom of Armenia under Tigranes the Great was situated in what it is called
nowadays Asia Minor, the Caucasus and the Middle East and had therefore many neighbors such
as Iberia, Albania, Parthia and Cappadocia. This territory was located in a strategic area between
the Roman and the Persian Empires, but was difficult to access as it was mainly situated in a
mountainous region. According to Strabo, it was a useful advantage for the Armenian people
compared to other countries as it could be used to protect the borders of Armenia against any
potential invaders (Strabo 317). Indeed, devastating attacks could be launched easily from
Armenia to its neighboring territories; however, the surrounding nations had difficulties to enter
Armenian lands. Furthermore, Strabo not only believed that Armenia was well protected thanks
to its mountains, but as well by the Taurus River situated in the Southern part of the country,
which separated the Kingdom of Armenia from Mesopotamia (Strabo 317).
The land of the Armenians was tremendously rich and contained many different natural
resources, which were beneficial for the nation’s wealth. Indeed, Armenia had numerous rivers
like the Phasis and the Lycus, it hold as well plenty of large lakes such as Lake Sevan, Lake Van
and Lake Urmia, which were considered the Seas of the Kingdom of Armenia (Strabo 327).
According to Mack Chahin, Armenia had “almost every mineral being available within its own
borders” and thought that it was not necessary for the Armenians to conquer other lands as they
had already everything essential in their own territory (Chahin 199). In addition, Strabo
emphasized that the Armenian land was exceptionally good for horse pasturing and that the

4. Torossian4
Nesaean horses, often used by Kings for being the best and the largest horses, were coming from
Armenia (Strabo 311).
In the second century BCE, the superpowers of the region where Armenia was located
were mainly the Persians, the Romans and the Seleucids (Strabo 337, Kurkjian 58). Artaxias and
Zariadris, both Armenians, were ranked by the Romans as independent and were given the title
of king (Strabo 337). The Armenian territory had “to face internal difficulties. Local princes,
lords of vast domains, showed a tendency to contravene the royal authority in the provinces”,
making the country unable to expend easily (Kurkjian 58) However, despite internal issues,
Armenia was able to defend itself against invaders like the Seleucids, which attacked Armenia in
165 B.C, but soon recover and took the advantage of internal troubles in Syria to fight back the
Seleucids (Kurkjian 58). Later, the rise of the Parthian Empire began, which resulted from too
many battles that Parthia won successfully (Kurkjian 60).Yet, as many resistances against the
Parthians were occurring in Armenia, the Parthian king, Mithridates II, declared peace with the
Armenians, gave back its territory, but took in hostage as compensation “the heir apparent, who
later became Tigranes the Great” (Kurkjian 60, Strabo 339). During his time in the Parthian
Empire, Tigranes II learned the skills of diplomacy as well as strategically warfare (Nazaryan 1).
In addition, he learned useful battle tactics that the Parthians used against the Romans (Nazaryan
1). For instance, the one where the Parthians were pretending to retreat “in unorganized fashion,
the deceived Romans would quickly brake in their organized flanks and pursue the Parthians,
then the Parthians would use their distinguish archery skills and would shoot down the Romans”
(Nazaryan 1).
In 95 BCE, the Kingdom of Armenia proclaimed the death of its king, Tigranes I, which
meant that the throne of this Kingdom was ready for its new leader. In order to return to his

5. Torossian5
homeland, Tigranes the Great bought his liberty by offering the Parthians seventy Armenian
valleys in the region of Atropatene, which Parthia accepted (Strabo 339). Once he returned in
Armenia, Tigranes the Great acquired power and was officially crowned King of Armenia in 95
BCE. At the beginning of his reign, Tigranes II decided to reconstruct and reorganize all of the
economic, political as well as military order in his kingdom (Nazaryan 3) He created a standing
army of around one hundred thousand men and as Armenia was “so very good for horse-
pasturing [...] that fifty thousand mares were pastured in the meadows”, his army included a
large number of cavalry as well as many foot-men, archers and pike men (Nazaryan 3, Strabo
329-331). In addition, the Armenian soldiers were fighting on foot as well as on horseback and
were both using light and heavy armor, which covered the fighters from head to toe (Strabo 227).
The Kingdom of Armenia was surrounded by many different nations, and notably it
shared mutual borders on the north with the Kingdom of Pontus, which was ruled by the King
Mithridates VI, the father in law of Tigranes the Great (Rocca 90). The two neighboring
Kingdoms decided in 94 BCE to sign each other a treaty for cooperation and mutual defense,
which made both the Kingdom of Pontus and Armenia allied countries (Nazaryan 5). The
location of these two territories was unsafe as it was near to major empires such as the Romans
and the Parthians, thus, their alliance was essential for their nation’s survival. They both agreed
in their mutual treaty to increase the size of their territories by fighting West in Roman lands
situated in Asia Minor for the King of Pontus and by fighting on the East side for Tigranes the
Great (Nazaryan 5). The alliance between the two nations got even stronger as Tigranes the
Great married Cleopatra, the daughter of Mithridates VI, who became the Queen of the Kingdom
of Armenia (Kurkjian 62). In addition, the Armenians did not only have Pontus as allied, but also
many people ready to fight with Armenia such as Georgians, Adiabenians, Caucasian Albanians,

6. Torossian6
Atropatenes, Gordeyenes as well as some Arabian chiefs (Nazaryan 3, Kurkjian 66-67). Thanks
to these allies, the Armenian army of Tigranes the Great could attain hundred of thousand men
(Kurkjian 66).
The expansion of the Kingdom of Armenia began after the King of Parthia, Mithridates
II, suddenly died in 86 BCE (Kurkjian63). Tigranes the Great took great advantage of the fact
that the Parthian Empire was left without any King and became weak, to recapture the seventy
valleys in Atropatene that he ceded before his reign to the Parthians in order to gain freedom
from them (Strabo 339). Tigranes the Great and his successful army kept going further east as
promised in the treaty with the King of Pontus, and conquered a territory called Greater Media as
well as its important metropolis, Ecbatana (Strabo 303). As his conquests remained successful,
he proclaimed himself as “King of Kings,” a name that he even inscribed on his coins (Kurkjian
63). After weakening the Parthian Empire, Tigranes the Great did not stop his army from
attacking other territories, and went to conquer the Southern region of its Kingdom, which was
Northern Mesopotamia (Strabo 339). Moreover, once the Armenian soldiers captured
Mesopotamia, they added after a bloody battle the Seleucid Dynasty into the Kingdom, which
led the Syrians to invite Tigranes the Great to their throne in order to be their leader and to obtain
protection from him (Nazaryan 13).
The fact that the expansion of the Kingdom of Armenia went far beyond its natural
borders, it made this territory an important nation. Thus, Tigranes the Great took the decision of
creating another capital city, named Tigranocerta, which was more centralized in the country
than to the one before his reign (Kurkjian 64). According to Vahan Kurkjian, thousand of Greek
families were deported from Asia Minor as well as other people such as Assyrians, Adiabenians,

7. Torossian7
Gordiene and Arabian, in order to increase the population of the new capital of the Kingdom of
Armenia (Kurkjian 64).
Under the reign of Tigranes the Great, the Armenian army was strong as it included
many powerful units for the time such as twelve thousand cavalrymen, many chariot warfare,
twelve thousand mounted archers and one hundred twenty thousand infantry men (Rocca 93,
Judith 2.5, 1.13, 2.15). According to an Ancient Roman historian named Plutarch, he argued that
the Armenian archers were powerful as they could kill any enemy from two hundred meters
thanks to their deadly accurate arrows (Plutarch 236). However, the Armenian army had many
followers, which according to Samuele Rocca, reduced the fighting capacity of the Armenian
soldiers (Rocca 93). Indeed, the army of Tigranes the Great included according to Judith “a very
large number of camels, asses, and mules for their baggage; innumerable sheep, cattle, and goats
for their food supply; and abundant provisions for each man, and much gold and silver” (Rocca
93, Judith 2.18). Thus, it made the Armenian army looked as a huge, irregular army, with too
many things to preoccupy (Rocca 93). Samuele Rocca emphasized in his article that any forces
from the Western world such as the Roman army could easily break the Armenian army if it
wanted to do so, but small armed forces like the ones in Cappadocia, the Phoenicia or Judaea,
could be destroyed without any difficulty by the Armenian forces (Rocca 93). For instance, the
Hebrew book of Judith declared that while the Armenian army was conquering Judaea, “When
the Israelites saw how many there were, they said to one another in great dismay: ‘Soon they
will devour the whole country. Neither the high mountains nor the valleys and hills can support
the mass of them” (Rocca 94, Judith 7, 4-5). The Armenian army was bringing terror to the
Jewish army as “when the men of the city saw the Armenians, they seized their weapons and ran
out of the city” (Judith 5, 12).

8. Torossian8
However, unlike the successful conquest made by Tigranes the Great, the invasion in
Roman lands of Anatolia by his Pontan ally was a complete calamity (Kurkjian 65). The Roman
Empire was too strong for Mithridates VI, that he had no choice than to escape in the territory of
Armenia, where he was protected not only by his ally, but also by his relative (Kurkjian 65).
Lucullus, a politician of the late Roman republic, then demanded Tigranes the Great to send back
his father in law in the hands of the Romans, but the Armenian king refused to do so and replied
that “The whole world and my own conscience would condemn me if I should surrender the
father of my wife to the enemy” (Kurkjian 66) However, the fact that he did not want to send
Mithridates to Lucullus, meant that the Kingdom of Armenia would be fighting against the
Romans on the West and the Parthians on the East( Kurkjian 66). For Tigranes refusal to obey
Lucullus, the Roman army entered the Armenian land located in Anatolia without any formal
declaration of war and captured Armenia’s newest capital city while Tigranes the Great was in
Phoenicia (Kurkjian 66).
In order to free his women and gain back its valuables left in his capital, the Armenian
king organized an army of Armenians as well as all of his allies from the regions (Kurkjian 66).
It is estimated that in total, Tigranes the Great collected an armed forces of around one hundred
thousand men and six thousand of his cavalry (Kurkjian 66). He successfully defeated the
Roman army by using the military tactic that he learned while he was in Parthia. However, the
situation became a nightmare for Tigranes the Great when his own son, Tigranes the young,
decided to help the Romans and the Parthians to fight against his father (Nazaryan 17). Tigranes
the Great was therefore fighting on three fronts, which was too much for him to handle
(Nazaryan 17).

9. Torossian9
Tigranes the Great accepted his defeat against the Roman Empire under the command of
Pompey (Kurkjian 69). Pompey told Tigranes the Great that there will be peace between the
Armenians and the Romans on the condition that he renounced his acquisition of Syria and Asia
Minor and pay “six thousand talents of silver […] and distributed as follows: to each soldiers
fifty drachmas, to each centurion a thousand drachmas, and to each hipparch and chiliarch a
talent” (Strabo 331, Kurkjian 69). Therefore, it marked the end of the biggest Armenian territory
ever created in history.
The Kingdom of Armenia had taken the great advantage under its King, Tigranes the
Great, of the fact that the Parthian Empire lost its leader and was weak, to create the biggest
expansion the history of Armenia ever had. The Armenian nations used the benefit of having
many allies in the region to pursuit her conquests and develop her sphere of influence in the
neighboring lands. I argue that the Armenian army was strong as it had many cavalries, chariots,
infantry men with either light or heavy armors as well as powerful archers, but that it could not
be comparable to the Roman army as it had more experience in war than the Armenians.
However, I believe that the fact that Mithridates VI lost his conquest in Anatolia against the
Romans, and that he was the father in law of Tigranes as well as the father of Cleopatra, he is the
main reason that the Armenians lost a huge amount of land. I emphasize that if it was not for
Mithridates VI, the Armenians could have kept their entire land and create an alliance with the
Roman Empire, which would make the Kingdom of Armenia more powerful in the region. I
believe people should care because it is interesting to see how small the Republic of Armenia is
nowadays but how enormous its territory was back in ancient times.

10. Torossian10
Bibliography
Primary Source:
Strabo. The Geography of Strabo. Trans. Horace L. Jones and J R. S. Sterrett. Vol. 5. London: William
Heinemann, 1917. 183-350. Print.
Sterrett, John Robert. S. Introduction. The Geography of Strabo. By Strabo. London: William
Heinemann, 1917. xiii-xxx. Print.
Roller, Duane. W. Introduction. The Geography of Strabo. By Strabo. Padstow:Cambridge University
Press,2014. 1-907. Print.
Secondary Sources:
Chahin, Mack. The Kingdom of Armenia. London; New-York: Croom Helm. 1987. Print.
Rocca, Samuele. The Book of Judith, Queen Salome Alexandra, and Tigranes of Armenia.
Academia.edu. 2005. 85-98.Web.
Justin. Epitome of The Philippic Historyof Pompeius Trogus. Trans. JohnSelbyWaston. London:
Henry G. Bohn, 1853. Print.
Armenia, the Land of Noah| Full Documentaries - Planet Doc Full Documentaries
Gevork Nazaryan
http://www.hyeetch.nareg.com.au/armenians/prominent_p5.html