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The Historians' History of the World 02 [Israel, India, Persia, Phoenicia, Minor Nations of Western Asia]
- Автор: Gutenberg
- Год: 1905
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: История
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ARMENIA
This was the Urartu of the Assyrian inscriptions, the Ararat of the Bible. It seems originally to have been one of the countries of Nairi, and gradually gained superiority over the others. It extended northward from Lake Van, between the Upper Euphrates and Media. The Assyrians began their assaults on Urartu at the time of Tiglathpileser I (ca. 1100 B.C.). Asshurnazirpal marched through its southern districts, but made no attempt to annex it to his dominions. Shalmaneser II laid the first plan for conquest. In 860 and 857 he invaded Urartu while Arame was king, defeating that monarch and bringing his dynasty to an end. A new house came to the throne, founded by Sarduris I, son of Lutipris. He immediately extended his borders by conquest and strengthened his kingdom, so, when the Assyrians came again in 850, 833, and 829, they went home without making any real progress in the north and west. Shalmaneser III (782-773) made six ineffectual campaigns against Urartu, which was now a real menace to the Assyrian empire. Argistis of Urartu wrested considerable territory from the Assyrians, and his successor, Sarduris II, continued the conquest of adjacent territory, and, forming a coalition of northern princes, started on a conquest of Syria. At this moment the prospects of Armenia becoming a great world-power were very bright, but Tiglathpileser III, of Assyria, having the same ambitions, encountered Sarduris and badly defeated him. The boundaries of Urartu were gradually narrowed to their original limits by the Assyrian conqueror about 735 B.C. The capital, Turuspa (Van), was besieged, but not taken; the spirit of Urartu was now completely broken. Ursa or Rusas succeeded Sarduris. Sargon II, of Assyria, had many conflicts with him, and when his son, Argistis II, came to the throne, he had only a small territory around Lake Van left to rule over. Tigranes I was the contemporary of Cyrus. After the fall of Assyria Armenia became a portion of the Persian empire. Alexander the Great conquered it with the defeat of King Vahi, but the Macedonian yoke was thrown off in 317 B.C. Ardvates was chosen king, but at his death the Seleucidæ again gained possession. When Antiochus the Great was defeated by the Romans, Artaxias, the governor of Greater Armenia, made himself independent. It was with this prince that the exiled Hannibal found refuge. Zadriades, in Lesser Armenia, followed the example of Artaxias, and his descendants maintained their position until the time of Tigranes II, when this country was annexed to Greater Armenia.
About 150 B.C. the Parthians stepped in, and Mithridates I established his brother Valarsaces in Armenia. Thus a new branch of the Asarcid dynasty was founded.
Tigranes II gave promise of making a great empire, but his father-in-law, Mithridates of Pontus, brought him in collision with the Romans. Pompey allowed him to keep Armenia, and made a new kingdom of Sophene and Gordyene, but another son, Artavasdes, tried to free himself from Rome, and Mark Antony carried him prisoner to Alexandria, where he was beheaded by Cleopatra (30 B.C.).
THE LYDIANS
The territory of Lydia was originally confined to the Plain of Sardis at the foot of Tmolus and Sipylus. Later it extended to include the Troad and became a maritime as well as an inland power. The coast of Ionia came under its dominion and at the time of Crœsus all Asia Minor west of the Halys, with the exception of Lycia, composed the Lydian kingdom.
B.C. The Lydian rulers traced their origin back to the sun-god Hercules, but there was an earlier dynasty which, however, is purely mythical, founded by Attys, another form of the sun-god. The Heraclid Dynasty shows Hittite or perhaps Semitic influence, and was founded by a son of Ninus and a descendant of Hercules and Omphale. About the end of the thirteenth century B.C. Lydia was conquered by the Hittites, and the Heraclid Dynasty seems to have arisen with the decline of the Hittite rule. It is said to have lasted 505 years and 690 come to an end with Sadyattes—the Candaules of Herodotus—who is slain by one of his herdsmen, Gyges, with the connivance of the queen. Gyges founds the dynasty of the Mermnadæ.
660 The kingdom is overrun by the Cimmerians. They capture Sardis. Gyges appeals to Asshurbanapal for aid. The latter beseeches the gods Asshur and Ishtar to aid Gyges, who gains a great victory over the invaders. But Gyges turns against Asshurbanapal. He sends aid to Psamthek against the Assyrians (655 B.C.).
652 The Cimmerians return, retake Sardis, and Gyges is slain in battle. His son Ardys succeeds. He at once gives allegiance to Assyria.
617 Sadyattes succeeds his father Ardys. He ends an eleven years’ war with Miletus.
612 Alyattes succeeds his father Sadyattes. Under him Phrygia is conquered, and the Greek cities of the coast are taken. The latter pay heavy duties to the Lydian king, and he thus becomes the richest monarch of the time.
585 Treaty with the Phrygians fixing boundaries of the two countries. Lydia is now threatened with the growing power of the Manda or eastern Scythians, and a six years’ struggle is ended by the marriage of Alyattes’ daughter, Aryenis, to Astyages, king of the Manda. The two kingdoms become friendly.
560 Crœsus ascends the throne on the death of his father Alyattes. He makes friends with Miltiades, the tyrant of the Thracian Chersonesus.
546 Crœsus heads an alliance with Aahmes II of Egypt, Nabonidus of Babylon, and the Spartans against Cyrus of Elam, who has overthrown his suzerain Astyages of the Manda. He enters Cappadocia on his way to meet Cyrus, is defeated in two battles and retires to Sardis. The allies do not send aid and the city falls. Lydia is absorbed into the Persian empire and then into the Greek. At Alexander’s death Lydia passed to Antigonus; then Achæus made himself king of Sardis, but Antiochus put him to death. Eumenes presented the country to the Romans, and subsequently it formed part of the province of Asia.
FOOTNOTES
[10] [There still exists an uncertainty as to the chronological order of these two kings. Meyer places Mari first, although the Biblical narrative would indicate the reverse to be the true order.]
CHAPTER I. THE HITTITES
When we pass to the north and west from Syria and Mesopotamia, we enter a region by no means so well known as the home of the Semites. The peninsula of Asia Minor is so situated, geographically, that it is the only highway between Asia and Europe, much as Palestine is the highway between Asia and Africa. The peoples which inhabited it were therefore necessarily, in some sense, a buffer between the great nations of the two continents. For the most part, the rôle they played, at any rate in later history, was a comparatively insignificant one. It is becoming more and more evident, however, that there was a time in ancient history,—using the term in the ordinary or relative sense,—when the people who inhabited Asia Minor took a foremost rank among the nations of their time as a warlike and conquering race.