Lesser Armenia

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Lesser Armenia in Roman times with the capital Nicopolis
More detailed map of the region

Lesser Armenia ( Armenian Փոքր Հայք [ Pokr Hayk ], Latin Armenia Minor ) is an ancient region on the Black Sea in northeastern Anatolia that was formerly inhabited by Armenians and is separated from Greater Armenia in the southeast by the upper Euphrates . It borders in the west and south on the historical regions of Pontos and Cappadocia , in the northeast on Colchis and Iberia in the Caucasus .

history

The ancient geographer Strabo describes this western Armenian region as "a fairly blessed land", criss-crossed by well-watered and wooded mountain ranges. As Strabo mentioned, Mithridates VI. Eupator used the land in which he had built 75 mountain fortresses as a retreat in his fight against the advancing Romans. The Roman general Pompey founded the capital Nikopolis here at an important crossroads - near today's Suşehri in the province of Sivas - and populated it with veterans and rural residents from the area. Another important city of Lesser Armenia was Satala .

In the Hellenistic period, Lesser Armenia was an independent kingdom. After it became the empire of Mithridates VI. had heard of Pontos, the Romans left the rulership of the land to various client kings, who (like Deiotaros ) were either raised for this purpose or were allowed to rule another area as “friends of Rome” (see list of rulers). For a period of direct Roman control (from AD 17), in AD 38, a prince from the Thracian royal dynasty named Kotys (IX) was appointed king of Lesser Armenia. Kotys is mentioned by the Jewish historian Flavius ​​Josephus as one of the participants in a meeting of six Middle Eastern clientele kings in the Galilean Tiberias that took place around AD 42/43. In AD 47 he tried - albeit in vain - to also become king of Greater Armenia to the east and to unite both parts of Armenia in this way. From 54 to 71/72 AD, Lesser Armenia was ruled by Aristobulus , a great-grandson of the Jewish king Herod the Great , and his wife Salome . Several coins with images and inscriptions of Aristobulus and Salome as the royal couple of Lesser Armenia have survived.

In 72 the Romans annexed Lesser Armenia to the province of Cappadocia, which was created in AD 17 . Lesser Armenia is sometimes equated in literature with Cilicia or the Kingdom of Lesser Armenia . In 1859 the population was composed mainly as follows: Dulqadr , Turkmanen , Kurds , Qàģàren , Bahàrlü , Afśàren , the majority of whom belong to Hanefi Islam , and a smaller minority of Christians.

King List

  • Mithridates (around 179 BC)
  • Mithridates Euergetes (133–129 BC)
  • Sisis (?)
  • Antipater (until approx. 107 BC)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Great Soviet Encyclopedia [1]  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: dead link / encycl.yandex.ru  
  2. ↑ Strabo: Description of the Earth. Book XII, 3, 28, p. 555 Casaubonus
  3. ↑ Deiotaros was a tetrarch of the Tolistoagians in Galatia who had rendered important services to the Roman generals Sulla , Publius Servilius Vatia , Lucius Licinius Murena , Lucius Licinius Lucullus and Pompey in their Asian wars.
  4. ↑ Flavius ​​Josephus: Jewish antiquities. IXX. 8.1.
  5. ↑ Queen Salome, the daughter of Herodias , is said to have been responsible for the death of John the Baptist as a youth through a veil dance .
  6. ↑ See Wolfgang Leschhorn: Ancient eras. Era, politics and history in the Black Sea region and in Asia Minor north of the Taurus. Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-515-06018-9 , p. 145.
  7. ↑ Otto Blau: News about Kurdish tribes: 1. Directory of the Kurdish tribes under Turkish suzerainty. In: Journal of the German Oriental Society, Leipzig, Cilt 16, 1862, pp. 607–627, here: 615.

Coordinates: 41 °  N , 40 °  E