WikiSort.ru - Не сортированное

Third dynasty of Armenia (in Armenian, Aršakuni), from the first to the mid-fifth century. The preceding dynasty of the Artaxiads became extinct about A.D. 12, amid a secessionist chaos caused by the perennial struggle of Iran and Rome over Armenia—the second throne, after Media, in the Iranian scheme of vassal kingdoms. It was then that the ex great king of Iran, Vonones I became king of Armenia. After him, seven Arsacid princes from Parthia came at different times to occupy the Armenian throne, interchangeably with six others, candidates of Rome. A compromise was finally attempted in 63 (Treaty of Rhandeia). An Arsacid, Tiridates I, was recognized by both empires as king of Armenia. Roman „friendship“ was imposed upon him—and in 66 he journeyed to Rome to be crowned by Nero—and, at the same time, as a Parthian prince, he was bound to accept the family ascendancy of the head of the Arsacids, the great king. The balance thus established between political and dynastic allegiance proved, however, precarious. Dynastic allegiance often became political as well, and Armenia continued to oscillate between the two rivals. None of the first eight Arsacids who reigned in Armenia founded a line of kings; it was left to the ninth, Vologases (Vałarš) II (180—191), to achieve this: his posterity of thirteen kings formed the Armenian Arsacid dynasty.

Arsacid dynasty — also called Arshakuni (247 bc-ad 224), ancient Iranian dynasty that founded and ruled the Parthian empire.

The Arsacids Both Rome and Parthia strove to stablish their own candidates on the Armenian throne until a lasting measure of equilibrium was secured by the treaty of Rhandeia, concluded in ad 63 between the Roman general Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo and Tiridates (Trdat), brother of the Parthian king Vologeses I. Under this treaty a son of the Parthian Arsacid dynasty, the first being Tiridates, would occupy the throne of Armenia but as a Roman vassal.

(Аршакуни) армянские — царская династия, родственная Аршакидам парфянским. Основана Тиридатом I (с 62, официально с 66 по 80). Парфия присылала претендента на престол при обязательной санкции римского императора. После падения парфянских Аршакидов и прихода к власти в Иране Сасанидов (226) Хосров I Великий А. (217—238) не признал их воцарения; власть А. стала наследственной. В правление А. в Армении складывались феод. отношения. При Тиридате III Великом (287—332) христианство стало в 301 гос. религией в Армении. А. боролись против феод. раздробленности, а также за независимость Армении, но безуспешно. После раздела Великой Армении в 387 между Ираном и Римом А. стали их вассалами; Армения утратила независимость. В 428 власть А. пала.

И при преемниках Артабана продолжались междоусобные войны; неурядицы в Армении и на Востоке потрясали государство. В 58-60 годах ещё раз дошло до борьбы между римлянами и парфянами, пока наконец не удалось мирно разрешить армянский вопрос: парфянский князь Тиридат отправился в Рим (62 год) и здесь император Нерон торжественно пожаловал его Арменией.

The Artashes dynasty came to an ignominious end with Tigranes IV, who was deposed by Augustus around 1 A.D. For the next three centuries the Armenian throne was occupied by a succession of dynasties, most of them of Parthian origin. The most important of these dynasties, the Arshakuni (Arsacid), was quickly Armenianized and survived in Armenia. In Parthia it was deposed by the Sasanids.

In this period Armenia had closer relations with Parthia not only in terms of dynastic rule, but also culturally and socially. There was some antagonism towards—and even rebellion against—the Romans, especially when the latter interfered too much in Armenia’s internal affairs. However, this was reversed in the third century when the Parthian dynasty of Persia was overthrown by the Sasanians in 224. The established balance of power between the Roman and Persian empires was broken. In the ensuing wars Armenia was once again caught in the middle and oscillated between the Romans and the new rulers of Iran. But this time the Armenian Arshakunis were against the Sasanian rulers who attacked Armenia, undermined the established dynasty, annexed the country, and enforced their version of Zoroastrianism as the official religion of the empire. Such opposition reinforced Armenian identity in relation to Persian rule and culture.
By the end of the third century the former equilibrium between Rome and Persia was reestablished and once again Arshakunis reigned in Armenia. But this dynasty had itself become Armenian (and presumably Armenian-speaking) along with the other Parthian ruling families of the region. Descendants of Persian Parthians were now the creators of «a truly Armenian Arshakuni dynasty»⁹. They reflected «a highly individual and identifiable Armenian entity with its own life and institutions», which had clearly consolidated in the Arshakuni period, and was recorded by contemporary historians¹⁰.
This centuries-long process seems to have taken place in the reverse order of modern nation-formation. Instead of the elite ‘creating’ the mass basis of the nation, the foreign-originated ruling class had itself become slowly ‘nationalised’ over centuries. By the end of the third century AD Parthian-Armenian opposition to Rome, followed by Roman-Armenian opposition to Sasanian Persia, had led to the development of a separate identity among the Armenian noble families that was much closer to the people they ruled than to any of the other royal families they were historically related to. This identity was based on a culture that partly borrowed from Rome and from Persia, but was rooted in Armenia. The Armenian language was also influenced by Persian loan words, but continued to be used widely.
⁹ G. Bournoutian, History of the Armenian People, vol. I, p. 60.
¹⁰N. Garsoian, Arsakuni Dynasty, p. 75.