Chapter IV: VAN (2)

The Khaldians take their place in this new chapter of history at least as early as the latter half of the ninth century before Christ. Their language was neither Semitic nor Indo-European; and it is therefore impossible to connect them either with the Assyrians, who were Semites, or with the Armenians, who belong to the Indo-European family. They ruled over the tableland which is now Armenia before the Armenians had appeared upon the scene; and it was the movement of races with which was connected the Armenian immigration that seems ultimately to have occasioned their dispersal and the overthrow of their power. Their dominion appears to have been due in no small degree to the happy choice of Van as their capital. Assyrian history ranges beyond the probable date of that foundation, to a period when Urardhu was perhaps an obscure province in the neighbourhood of the modern Rowanduz in Kurdistan. The Assyrian armies in their marches northwards were opposed by a confederacy of petty princes whose country is called Nairi in the Assyrian inscriptions. That loose term evidently embraced a considerable portion of the Armenian tableland; for it was in the plain of Melazkert that the Assyrian king, Tiglath-Pileser I. (c. 1100 B.C.), [54] overthrew the united forces of the kings of Nairi and erected a memorial tablet which has been preserved to the present day. [55] In a restricted sense the name Nairi was applied by the Assyrians to the province about the middle and upper course of the Great Zab; and the lakes of Van and Urmi, between which that territory was situated, were both known as the Upper seas or seas of the land of Nairi, Lake Van being sometimes distinguished as the Upper sea of the West, and Lake Urmi as the Eastern or even as the Lower sea. [56] The kingdom of Urardhu is for the first time mentioned by the Assyrians in the reign of Ashur-nasir-pal (885-860 B.C.); but it is not before the ensuing reign of Shalmaneser II. (860-825 B.C.) that we have certain evidence of an Assyrian army marching into Armenia to attack the territories not of a league of Nairi princes but of a monarch of Urardhu. This prince, of whom no records have been discovered in Armenia, is called Arame. His capital, of which the site is at present unknown, but which certainly lay to the north of Lake Van, bears the name of Arzasku. Arame was signally defeated in 857 or 856 B.C. and abandoned his capital. His cities as far as the sources of the Euphrates (Murad?) were taken by Shalmaneser in 845 or 844 B.C. When next we hear of a king of Urardhu we are able to recognise in his name the earliest of the rulers who appear in the Vannic texts. And this monarch, Sarduris the First, the contemporary of the same Shalmaneser and his antagonist about 833 B.C., was the founder of the fortress of Van.

No better position for a stronghold against a Power operating from the lowlands in the south could have been discovered by the builders of an empire on the Armenian plains. In the later phases of the history of Armenia the movements of empires and peoples have generally proceeded between the east and the west. Against such currents the city of Van composes a minor obstacle, which they avoid on their more normal and northerly course. Always secure with a fleet on the lake and the passes of Mount Varag fortified, the true military value of the place only advances into first-rate importance when the centres of the hostile forces lie in Mesopotamia. It is screened in that direction by perhaps the most impenetrable section of the entire outer or Iranian arc of the peripheral mountains which support the tableland. [57] Moreover, the circumstance that the arc has snapped and sent out a splinter into the districts on the north, represented by the mountains in which the Great Zab has its source, and, further north, by the elevated but not impassable waterparting between the basin of Lake Van and that of the Araxes, has had the effect of concealing Van within the fork of a twofold parapet where it reposes with its back against the complex barrier and defies attack from the south or south-east. The approach from the west along the southern shore of the lake is interrupted by the spurs of the great range; and the Assyrian armies were compelled to make the détour by the plain of Melazkert, gaining the plateau by one of the passes north of Diarbekr and leaving it upon their return home through one of the passages east of Rowanduz where the sea of mountains settles down to a regular course. Such an immense circuit through a hostile country necessitated resources on a vast scale, the existence of which among the Assyrians fills the mind with admiration when we contemplate the squalor of the Oriental empires of the present day. But there can be no doubt that all the advantages lay on the side of their northern adversaries, to whom was offered a reasonable chance of annihilating their hosts, or, in the event of defeat, the secure alternative of shutting themselves up in their capital and there awaiting the passing over of the storm. These considerations serve to explain the comparative immunity and the rapid development of the empire of the successors of Sarduris the First; at a time, too, when Assyria was governed by such warlike monarchs as Shamshi-Ramman and Ramman-nirari. [58] It was reserved for Tiglath-Pileser the Third to beard the lion in his den, and to appear before the walls of Van. But even this gigantic figure failed to capture the citadel, although he appears to have destroyed the garden town at its feet (735 B.C.). [59] The ultimate effects of his campaign may be measured by the fact that the inveterate and sometimes successful adversary of Sargon (722-705 B.C.) was the Vannic king Rusas the First. And the northern empire is still a force with which the Assyrians have to reckon as late as Ashur-bani-pal, the Sardanapalus of the Greeks (668-626 B.C.).

So far as our knowledge at present extends we may regard Sarduris the First as the initiator of a remarkable and far-reaching revolution among the peoples of the tableland. The title which this monarch bears, that of king of Nairi, as compared with that of his successors, kings of Biaina, [60] connects him with the earlier period of the confederacy of Nairi princes which his dynasty under the ægis of the god Khaldis was destined to supplant. His son, Ispuinis, and his grandson Menuas at once extended the empire and added to the works upon the citadel of Van; and the latter was the principal author of that magnificent canal which to the present day under the fanciful name of Shamiram-Su, or river of Semiramis, conducts the waters of the Khoshab to the suburbs of Van. [61] Menuas may, therefore, be considered as the founder of the garden town; although at that time it is probable that it was situated south of the citadel rather than, as is now the case, at some distance to the east. [62] During the reign of the successor of Menuas, Argistis the First, the Vannic dynasty reached the zenith of its power. The kinglets of the valley of the Araxes had been dispossessed of their fertile territories, and the great city which was afterwards known as Armavir rose from the banks of the river in honour of the god of Van. The whole extent of the Armenian tableland, such as it is described in the present work, with the possible exception of some of the most northerly districts, was subject to the rulers residing on the shore of the great lake; and their inscriptions recording conquests are found as far east as the province south of Lake Urmi and as far west as the Euphrates near Malatia. In that direction they came in contact with the Hittites; while their neighbours on the east were none other than the Minni of Scripture, residing in the more southerly portion of the Urmi basin and the adjacent districts. [63] The inscriptions on the rock of Van enumerate the feats of arms of Argistis the First and Sarduris the Second. No records have yet been found further north than Lake Gökcheh, Kanlija, near Alexandropol, and Hasan Kala, near Erzerum. South of their capital the wild districts of Shatakh, Norduz and Mukus have been scoured by travellers in quest of such monuments, but hitherto without result.

With one exception no systematic excavations have yet been made upon any of the sites of the cities and strongholds of the Vannic kings. When these shall have been undertaken we may expect to have drawn an impressive picture of the attainments of their people in the arts. The single instance of such efforts--and it is not one of which we need be proud [64]--has been directed to the low limestone hills which overlook the gardens of Van upon the north, and which in their neighbourhood bear the name of Toprak Kala. In or about the years 1879 and 1880 operations were conducted upon this eminence under the direction, as I have gathered, of Captain Clayton, then our consul at Van, and of Mr. Hormuzd Rassam. [65] Tunnels were opened into that part of the site which disclosed the buried remains of an ancient settlement, and which was found to have been covered with buildings composed for the most part of sun-dried bricks. The most important result of the enterprise was the laying bare of a temple, still containing quite a number of bronze shields with cuneiform inscriptions, embossed and chased with ornamental designs and the figures of animals. Some of these may be seen in the British Museum and others in the Museum at Berlin. They represent votive offerings on the part of the kings, and were suspended upon the walls in the manner shown by an existing bas-relief from the palace of Sargon at Khorsabad. Indeed that sculpture portrays the destruction by the Assyrians of the temple of Khaldis in the city of Mutsatsir, not very far from the present town of Rowanduz. The dimensions of the edifice were small, only 69 feet by 44 feet, measured at the foundations. But the walls were built of great blocks of hewn stone, and traces of a pavement in a kind of mosaic were found. The doors appear to have been of bronze. Outside the entrance stood a block of marble which was hollowed out and was probably used for sacrifices. At the time of my visit little was to be seen of this interesting structure, for the vandal townspeople had removed its masonry for building purposes. Large faced blocks, taken thence and perhaps from other edifices, were being rolled down the hillside. Only a fraction of the objects found was brought away by Messrs. Clayton and Rassam; their workmen abstracted the remainder, from whose hands some portions have filtered into Europe. Toprak Kala has quite recently (1898) been the scene of further excavations, this time on the part of Messrs. Belck and Lehmann. They have dug out the substructures of the temple to its foundations, cleared away the rubbish which obstructed a long subterraneous passage, debouching into a large chamber which may have served as a reservoir, and which was fed by an artificial duct deriving its water from a neighbouring spring; and discovered a wine-cellar containing colossal vats, some engraved with Vannic writing and one with a Persian cuneiform inscription. We also owe to their labours the discovery not far from the temple of a space which seems to have been set apart to receive the bones of the sacrificial animals and of the human beings, captives of war, who had been offered up to the god. They have acquired numerous objects, of silver as well as of bronze and iron, including weapons and ornaments of various kinds. But the principal service which they have rendered is the identification of Toprak Kala with the city of Rusas mentioned in the stele near Keshish Göl on the slopes of Mount Varag. The inscription on that monument, if rightly deciphered, leaves little doubt that King Rusas, probably the first of that name, made use of that little lake as a partly natural and partly artificial reservoir, and conducted its waters along the foot of the Toprak Kala heights to the region occupied by the present site of the garden town. The earliest ruler mentioned on the shields is Rusas the Second; while we know from their contents that the temple was built or restored by Rusas the Third in honour of the god Khaldis. All the indications favour the assumption that in consequence of the depredations of Tiglath-Pileser the Third some change was made in the disposition of the city. The heights of Toprak Kala seem in some degree to have usurped the importance of the citadel, and to have been used as defences for the extension of the gardens in that direction. [66]

The culture of the Vannic kingdom was perhaps borrowed from the Assyrians and was certainly derived from the Mesopotamian plains. The legend of the passion of the queen of Assyria, the consort of the eponymous hero Ninus, for an Armenian king who suffers death at her hands and is restored to life, [67] contains, so far as it expresses the intercourse of the pre-Armenian peoples, a considerable kernel of truth. Ara and Semiramis are none other than Tammuz and Istar, the Adonis and the Aphrodite of the Hellenic myth; and the advent from Assyria of the voluptuous queen in quest of a beautiful but reluctant lover may be connected with the introduction from abroad of the worship of Istar. [68] However this may be, it is certain that the earliest inscriptions found at Van are in the Assyrian language and character; while those of the successors of Sarduris the First, although composed in the Vannic tongue, show but slight deviations from the cuneiform writing as practised at Nineveh. There is evidence to show that long after the disappearance of the empire of the Khaldians Assyrian influences lingered on in the land. I shall have occasion to remark these traces in the study of the architecture of the church at Akhtamar; and they compose a factor which should never be quite absent from the mind when examining the masterpieces of Armenian mediæval art. The Vannic dynasty are not the symbol of resistance on the part of rude mountaineers to the approach of civilisation moving up from its immemorial seats. Far rather do they represent the beneficent spread of arts and letters over the Armenian plains. The favourite sites of their cities are not the recesses of the mountains of the tableland, but some small eminence from a wide extent of level and fertile ground, as typically embodied by the rock of Van and the mound of Armavir. They are builders of canals to irrigate the land, of roads to traverse even the scarcely passable ridges of the peripheral region, of bridges to span the great rivers. If we are still in the dark with respect to their ethnic affinities, we need harbour no doubts upon the character of the civilisation which they contributed to diffuse.

Like Adonis they have been carried down the stream of time, and over them the eddy has long since closed. The spade of the archæologist reveals the charred remains of their later stronghold on the heights of Toprak Kala overlooking the gardens of Van. But by what people and at what date were they stricken to the ground, and their temples and palaces given to the flames? It is the disadvantage of a history which is derived from inscriptions, that issues as well as origins must remain obscure. I am not aware that any certain answer can be given to the first part of the question, and the date of the supreme catastrophe which must have overtaken the city can only be approximately fixed. The Vannic records differ in one important respect from those of Assyria; they do not contain a single date. The chronology is therefore dependent upon the mention in them of an Assyrian monarch or by the Assyrians of a contemporary ruler of Urardhu. The latest inscriptions hitherto discovered belonging to the northern kingdom are those of Rusas the Third, the son of Erimenas, who lived in the time of Ashur-bani-pal. But a successor of this prince is mentioned in the Assyrian annals as having sent an embassy to Nineveh about 644 B.C. His name is the familiar one of Sarduris, and he takes his place as the third king of that name. It would appear likely that at the time of his embassy he had only just begun to reign; and we should probably be justified in protracting the span covered by the Vannic dynasty at least as late as the death of Ashur-bani-pal (c. 626 B.C.). This date brings us down to the dawn of Oriental history as contained in the works of Greek writers. In the pages of Herodotus the Armenian tableland as well as Assyria form portions of the great empire of Darius (521-486 B.C.) and Xerxes (485-465 B.C.), which had succeeded the loose rule of the Scythians. And this new era has left behind it one of the most impressive of the monuments upon the rock of Van. On its southern face, in full view of the walled town at its base, is inscribed the trilingual record of the Persian conquest. "A great god is Ormazd, who is the greatest of gods, who has created this earth, who has created that heaven, who has created mankind, who has given happiness to man, who has made Xerxes king, sole king of many kings, sole lord of many. I am Xerxes the great king, the king of kings, the king of the provinces with many languages, the king of this great earth far and near, son of king Darius the Achæmenian. Says Xerxes the king: Darius the king, my father, did many works through the protection of Ormazd, and on this hill he commanded to make his tablet and an image; yet an inscription he did not make. Afterwards I ordered this inscription to be written. May Ormazd, along with all the gods, protect me and my kingdom and my work. [69]

Years before this noble pronouncement was engraved in its imperishable arrowheads the empire of Assyria had come to an end. Nineveh was laid desolate in 606 B.C. by her Babylonian subjects assisted by the hordes of the Scythian king. [70] Within a very brief period of the history of these countries ethnic changes on a vast scale had taken place. New nations had appeared upon the scene. The Cimmerian nomads, followed closely by the wild tribes of Scythia, had penetrated southwards from the countries on the north of Caucasus and swarmed over the settled lands. Ancient kingdoms tottered and fell into the human surge. It is just at this period that we come to hear of the Armenians. All the evidence points to the conclusion that they entered their historical seats from the west, [71] as a branch of a considerable immigration of Indo-European peoples crossing the straits from Europe into Asia Minor and perhaps originally coming from homes in the steppes north of the Black Sea. Just as their kinsmen, invading Europe, drove the old races before them, such as the Etruscans, the Ligurians, and the Basques, so the Armenians seem to have filled the void which may have been created by the ravages of the Scythians and to have supplanted the subjects of the old Khaldian dynasty in the possession of the plains of the tableland.

That this revolution was not accomplished until at least as late as the fifth century before Christ may be gathered from the pages of Herodotus. The Armenians are known to this father of historians as inhabiting the mountainous country about the sources of the Halys and those of the Tigris, extending round towards the Mediterranean in the neighbourhood of Cilicia, their boundary on this side being the Euphrates. [72] On the other hand the Khaldians or Urardhians have not already disappeared, although they have obviously declined to a subordinate position. They are mentioned under the name of Alarodians, [73] and they are joined with the Matienians and Saspeires or Sapeires in the eighteenth satrapy of the Persian empire. [74] Herodotus leaves us in the dark as to the exact localities in which they lived, although he indicates that the seats of the Saspeires lay to the south of the Kolchians, who inhabited the southern shore of the Black Sea in the neighbourhood of the Phasis. [75] He informs us that Alarodians and Saspeires were both armed like the Kolchians, and the fact that the satrapies were organised with a view to ethnic affinities suggests the possibility that the two names first mentioned had come to be applied to one and the same race. Other considerations seem to point in the same direction. Down to a comparatively recent period we find a people called Chaldians (as written in the Greek character) or Chaldæans occupying the mountains between Trebizond and Batum. There can be little doubt that they represented the remnants of the Vannic people, and they were almost certainly the same as the Alarodians of Herodotus and probably the same as the Saspeires, who have perhaps left their name to the present town of Ispir. [76] When the Armenians had expelled the ancient inhabitants from the settled country we know from a most interesting chapter in the Cyropædeia of Xenophon that the latter took refuge in the mountains. They fortified inaccessible peaks and lived by plunder, raiding down upon the plains. [77] Our knowledge of the geography may at this point assist our historical investigations; and we may be reasonably sure that we shall find the relics of the dispossessed Khaldians inhabiting the fastnesses of the peripheral ranges which border Armenia upon the north and south.

That this was the case in the northern region is proved by the long survival of the name Chaldia (= Khaldia) among those inhospitable heights. Professor Lehmann has collected with a thoroughness of which his countrymen alone seem capable, a catalogue of passages in Greek and Byzantine writers making mention either of the Chaldian people or of the province to which they gave their name. [78] That people are sometimes called Chaldæans in classical authors. But that this was an error seems sufficiently proved by the name of the province--Chaldia; by the survival side by side of the variant form--Chaldians, and by the practice of Armenian writers to distinguish between the name of the tribe on their northern frontiers and that of the Chaldæans. Chaldia with the capital Trebizond formed one of the military themes of the Byzantine empire; and I should like to add yet another reference to the lists of Professor Lehmann, this one taken from the travels of the Castilian ambassador, Don Ruy Gonzalez Clavigo, in the year 1404. Setting out from Trebizond on his way to Erzinjan, we find him travelling on the third day out through the snowy mountains of the province of Chaldia to the castle of Tzanich which stood on a crag; and on the morrow, in the evening, he arrives at the castle of the duke of Chaldia, where all caravans pay toll. The territory formed a part of the empire of the Grand Comneni; and the name has survived to the present day as that of a diocese of the Greek Church with the capital Gümüshkhaneh on the road from Trebizond to Baiburt. [79]

It is not so easy to trace the remnants of this ancient people in the southern zone of mountains. Their presence there is attested by the march of Xenophon with the relics of the Ten Thousand. A body of Chaldæan or, more properly, of Chaldian mercenaries oppose his passage of the Bohtan branch of the Tigris. [80] They are described as of independent spirit and warlike nature, and, like the Karduchi, the modern Kurds, as still maintaining their political freedom. One is tempted to enquire whether the present so-called Chaldæan or Assyrian Christians, who are spread about the districts in the neighbourhood of Julamerik watered by the Great Zab, may not supply the necessary and missing link. But here we approach a thorny and difficult question, upon which the limitations of the present enquiry forbid us to touch. [81] It will be better capable of discussion when some unanimity shall have been attained upon the origin and ethnic affinities of the subjects of the old Vannic kings. The Chaldæan Christians are reputed to have fled into the mountains from Mesopotamia as late as the era of Timur. Baghdad and then Mosul would seem to have been the earlier seats of their patriarchate. The name Chaldæan is not one which they apply to themselves, although they believe in their "Assyrian" origin. There is held by some scholars to be the widest etymological and original difference between the name of the people who were called after the god Khaldis and that of the Babylonian Chaldees or Chaldæans. But the question of a possible racial or cultural link between them cannot at present be regarded as already negatived. [82]

Although the whole subject of the Vannic kingdom has scarcely yet arrived beyond its infantile stages, the knowledge already attained serves to throw quite a flood of light upon the early history of Armenia and of the Armenians. In a former chapter [83] I had occasion to remark the obscurity of Armenian chronicles prior to the advent of their Arsakid dynasty. The people known as Armenians to Darius and to classical writers have always been accustomed to prefer the name of their reputed progenitor, Hayk, the son of Togarmah, great-grandson of Japhet. They call themselves the Hayk or children of Hayk. They believe that their ancestor emigrated from Babylon in a north-westerly direction and ultimately arrived upon the shores of Lake Van. They style the line of their primeval kings the Haykian dynasty, and they relate in a fabulous manner the early struggles of this dynasty with the Assyrian Power. Their historians admit that for this period they are destitute of native annals, and they deplore the illiterateness of their forefathers. It would almost seem as if they had presented us with a darkened and legendary account of the history of their predecessors, possibly mingled with the experiences of their own race. That the people of the Vannic kings were not Armenians is proved by the distinctive character of their language. That their empire continued to exist until at least as late as the latter half of the seventh century before Christ is a fact which is beyond doubt. Nothing which we might be inclined to attribute to the Armenians has been found at Toprak Kala. On the other hand, we may gather from Xenophon that after a period of mutual distrust the Armenians intermarried with the Khaldians whom they had dispossessed. [84] To this extent they may inherit the blood of that ancient people which gave to Armenia a degree of civilisation which in many respects it has not been privileged since to enjoy.

The Armenians, like all capable and conquering races, borrowed much from the and attainments of the older inhabitants. Their most ancient cities--Van, Armavir, and perhaps Melazkert and Arjish--were foundations of the Vannic kings. The city of Hayk, as it has long been called, in the Hayotz-dzor, south-east of Van, has disclosed to the first essays of the modern archæologist the familiar features of a Khaldian settlement. [85] But Persian influences left upon them a more visible impression; and their supreme god during the pre-Christian era was not the Khaldis of the Vannic texts but the Ormazd of the inscription of Xerxes, "who has created this earth, who has created that heaven, who has created mankind." [86]

Sequence of the Vannic Kings. [87]

Arame.--No inscriptions. Known only through those of the Assyrian king, in which he is styled king of Urardhu. Attacked in 860 or 859 B.C. by Shalmaneser II. and again in 857 or 856 B.C. in his capital, Arzasku (site?). [88] His cities as far as the sources of the Euphrates were taken by the same monarch in 845 or 844 B.C.

1. Sarduris I.--Son of Lutipris. Three inscriptions (Zeitschrift für Assyriologie, 1899, p. 315) on massive blocks of stone, forming part of a wall which extended from the western extremity of the rock of Van roughly in a northerly direction towards the harbour across the plain (Verhandlungen der Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, etc., 1897, p. 305). Appears to have been the initiator of the fortifications of the rock of Van. Bore the title: "king of the world (Sar Kissati), king of Nairi." Attacked about 833 B.C. by the general of Shalmaneser II.; styled king of Urardhu in the Assyrian inscriptions.

2. Ispuinis.--His son. Several inscriptions, in which he is more commonly associated with his son Menuas. The inscriptions are found as far apart as the Kelishin Pass between Rowanduz and Ushnei, the hill of Ashrut-Darga, east of the village of Salekhane, east of Van and the Van region, and Patnotz, north of Sipan. His title is given in the Vannic text of the Kelishin stele as: king of Nairi, king of Suras (i.e. of northern Syria [89]), inhabiting the city of Dhuspas; and in the inscription of Ashrut Darga as: king of Biaina, inhabiting the city of Dhuspas. Is probably the Uspina from whom the general of the Assyrian king Shamshi-Ramman III. (825-812 B.C.) captured 11 forts and 200 villages during his campaign against Nairi. His newly-discovered inscription near the Tabriz gate at Van appears to ascribe the construction of the works upon the citadel to himself, his father Sarduris, his son Menuas and his grandson Inuspuas (V. Anth. 1898, p. 575).

3. Menuas.--His son, associated with his father in the government, and afterwards with his own son, Inuspuas. To this king belong the largest number of the inscriptions yet discovered, ranging from the Kelishin Pass and the rock of Tashtepe, near the southern shore of Lake Urmi (Sayce, J.R.A.S. vol. xiv. p. 386; Belck, Z. Assyr. 1899, p. 313), the latter of which commemorates his conquests in the kingdom of Minni (V. Anth. 1894, p. 481) in the east, to Palu on the Lower Murad in the west; and from Van and the Van regions in the south to Hasan-Kala, near Erzerum, in the north. Perhaps his most important conquest was that of a great portion of the valley of the Araxes on the northern side of the Ararat system. Menuas may be regarded as the founder of the original garden city of Van, which probably occupied a somewhat different position than at the present day, and extended to the borders of the lake, where it received the waters of the canal since called the Shamiram Su, coming through Artemid--a work on a great scale, which we now know to have been constructed principally by this monarch, and which provided the volume of irrigation necessary for an extensive settlement. Records his conquests. Extensively restored Melazkert (Z. Assyr. 1892, p. 262; V. Anth. 1898, pp. 569 seq.) and founded Arzwapert, north-east of Arjish. His title is: the great king, the king of Biaina, inhabiting the city of Dhuspas.

4. Argistis I.--His son. Numerous inscriptions which show that he extended the conquests of Menuas, especially towards the north. These inscriptions are found as far north as Kanlija, near Alexandropol, and Sarikamish, on the road from Kars to Erzerum, by which route he probably advanced or retired from the districts north of the Ararat system. From those at Van, which are in fact detailed annals of his conquests, we learn that he met and overcame the armies of Assyria on more than one occasion in the regions south-east of Lake Urmi. His reign represents the culminating point of Vannic empire. He ascribes to himself works upon the rock and in the city of Van; and he was the founder of the city of Armavir in the valley of the Araxes (V. Anth. 1896, p. 313). He bore the title of: the great king, the king of Biaina, inhabiting the city of Dhuspas.

5. Sarduris II.--His son. Numerous inscriptions, distributed over a large area of country, one being found in the south-east corner of Lake Gökcheh, another (discovered by us) near the western summit of the Bingöl Dagh, [90] and yet another as far west as the Euphrates near Malatia in Asia Minor. The first and last record conquests in those countries. Ascribes to himself works upon the rock and in the city of Van, and gives a list of his conquests, including some over the Assyrian monarch Ashur-nirari II., 754-745 B.C. (V. Anth. 1898, pp. 570-77). But these successes were followed by disasters which dealt a severe blow at the Vannic kingdom. With the accession of Tiglath-Pileser III. of Assyria (745-727 B.C.) a new area is initiated in the relations of these two great Powers of the day. The clash seems to have come in the year 743 and in connection with the endeavour of Tiglath-Pileser to possess himself of the strong place of Arpad between the present towns of Aleppo and Killis, the key of northern Syria, a country over which the Vannic kings had for several reigns upheld pretensions. Sarduris headed the league against the Assyrians and drew off the king from the siege of Arpad. He was, however, signally defeated "near Kistan and Khalpi, districts of Kummukh" (Kommagene), and pursued as far as "the bridge over the Euphrates, the boundary of his kingdom." Subsequently, in 735 B.C., Tiglath-Pileser carried the war into the very heart of the Vannic country, and at length appeared before the city of Van. Sarduris was obliged to shut himself up in the impregnable citadel, while his adversary massacred his warriors and his people in the city at its feet, and erected a statue of himself in front of it. He then ravaged the territory of Sarduris over a space of some 450 miles, meeting with no opposition anywhere. (For the sequence of these events, made known to us by the Assyrian inscriptions, see V. Anth. 1896, pp. 321 seq., and Smith's Assyria, London, S.P.C.K. 1897, pp. 83 seq.). Sarduris increased the importance of the city of Armavir, and ascribes to himself works upon the citadel and in the city of Van. Bore the title: king of kings, king of the land of Suras, king of Biaina, inhabiting the city of Dhuspas. Styled king of Urardhu in the Assyrian inscriptions.

6. Rusas I.--His son. The author of at least two important extant inscriptions, that of Kölani-Girlan (Alutshalu), on the face of a rock overlooking Lake Gökcheh, and that of Topsanä (Sidikan), in the district of Rowanduz in Kurdistan, discovered by Rawlinson and recently examined by Dr. Belck (Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, Berlin, 1899, pp. 99-132). The first records conquests and the restoration of a palace; the second, which has, however, not yet been published, conveys noteworthy facts bearing upon the relations with Assyria. We know from the Assyrian inscriptions that the Vannic kingdom was by no means crushed by the campaign of Tiglath-Pileser; for the son of Sarduris, this Rusas the First, displayed great activity in inciting the neighbouring principalities against the successor of the conqueror, Sargon (722-705 B.C.), among which may be specially mentioned the kingdom of Minni, south-east of Lake Urmi, and the almost impregnable territory of Mutsatsir or Ardinis near Rowanduz. Sargon tells us how, in 714 B.C., he penetrated into Mutsatsir, which contained a temple of the god Khaldis, the god of the Vannic kingdom; how its king Urzana fled, and how he plundered and burnt the city, rifled the temple and carried off the statues of the gods. He relates that Ursa, king of Urardhu (i.e. Rusas I.), upon hearing of this disaster to his ally and of the carrying off of the god, committed suicide. The contents of the inscription of Topsanä throw doubt upon this latter statement. They are to the effect that Rusas restored Urzana to his kingdom, led his armies as far as "the mountains of Assyria," and restored the offerings to Khaldis in Mutsatsir.

If, as seems probable, the Rusas of the shattered stele of Keshish Göl near Van be this first king of that name, then we must ascribe to this monarch the various works which are mentioned in that inscription (Sayce, No. lxxix.), and which, as Messrs. Belck and Lehmann have conclusively shown, should be referred to Toprak Kala, an eminence from the plain some little distance east of the rock of Van and close to the present garden town. These works appear to have been: the constitution of the Keshish Göl into a reservoir, the conduct of its waters to the Rusahina, or city of Rusas, as distinct from Dhuspas; the laying out of this new city, with numerous vineyards and gardens, and the building of a palace there. Rusas I. may therefore be regarded as the author of the transference of the site of the garden town from the south to the east of the rock of Van, where it was protected by the heights of Toprak Kala. The necessary irrigation was drawn from the Keshish Göl instead of or in addition to that derived from the canal of Menuas. The change was probably made in consequence of the destruction by Tiglath-Pileser of the old town, although he was unable to effect the capture of the citadel or rock of Van (Z. Ethnologie, 1892, pp. 141 seq.; V. Anth. 1893, p. 220; Z. Assyr. 1894, pp. 349 seq.; Deutsche Rundschau, Christmas 1894, pp. 411 seq.; V. Anth. 1898, p. 576; Z. Assyr. 1899, p. 320). Rusas I. is styled Ursa, king of Urardhu, in the Assyrian inscriptions. Those of the Vannic Monarchy, hitherto published, do not furnish a title.

7. Argistis II.--His son. The mention of this ruler in a Vannic text was discovered by Messrs. Belck and Lehmann in an inscription on a shield from the temple at Toprak Kala, now in the British Museum (Z. Assyr. 1894, pp. 82-99; cp. Z. Assyr. 1892, pp. 263 seq.; V. Anth. 1895, p. 595); and two of his own inscriptions have recently been found by these investigators in the neighbourhood of Arjish (V. Anth. 1898, p. 573). They have not yet been published. This prince is alluded to in the Assyrian annals. He appears to have endeavoured to repeat the tactics of Sarduris III. against Tiglath-Pileser III., and to have succeeded in inciting the king of Kummukh (Kommagene) against Sargon. But his efforts only resulted in the subjugation of Kummukh by the Assyrian monarch in 708 B.C. (Smith's Assyria, 1897, p. 116).

8. Rusas II.--His son. So known to us from the inscription on the shield above mentioned (Z. Assyr. 1894, pp. 82-99, and 339 seq.; V. Anth. 1895, p. 596). Two new inscriptions of this king have been found by Dr. Belck at Adeljivas (V. Anth. 1898, p. 573), in which he is stated to have conquered the Hittites and Moschians. He is also mentioned on a clay tablet discovered by Messrs. Belck and Lehmann at Toprak Kala (Van). He was the contemporary of Esarhaddon of Assyria (681-668 B.C.), and is mentioned in an Assyrian inscription of that reign (H. Winckler, Altorientalische Forschungen, 2nd ser. vol. i. 1898, p. 41; and see Z. Assyr. 1894, p. 341).

9. Erimenas.--Known only from an inscription on a shield from the temple at Toprak Kala, now in the British Museum, as being the father of Rusas III.

10. Rusas III.--His son. Rebuilt the temple of Khaldis on Toprak Kala (shield inscriptions in the British Museum published by Prof. Sayce, No. lii. in J.R.A.S. 1882, pp. 653 seq. For Tuprak Kilissa read Toprak Kala, Van, and cp. Z. Assyr. 1892, p. 266; Z. Assyr. 1894, p. 97 and pp. 339 seq.; V. Anth. 1895, p. 595). An inscription of this king has been found at Armavir (Sayce, lxxxv.). Sent an embassy to Ashur-bani-pal of Assyria about 655 B.C. (Z. Assyr. 1894, p. 342). Bore the title: the great king, inhabiting the city of Dhuspas.

11. Sarduris III.--Known through the Assyrian inscriptions as having sent an embassy to Ashur-bani-pal about 644 B.C. (Z. Assyr. 1894, p. 342).

III.--VAN TOWARDS THE CLOSE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

With the single exception of the remains of a mosque enriched with traceries and Arabic legends in a style worthy of the best traditions of Saracenic art, there remains no vestige in Van of any period of prosperity and splendour subsequent to the era of the pre-Armenian kings. It is true that the whole region is subject to seismic influences, and that many of the monuments of later ages may have succumbed through this cause. There exists a tradition that the isolation of the rock of Van itself is due to an earthquake in very ancient times, resulting in its severance from the heights adjacent on the east. Several visitations of considerable severity have probably occurred during the historical period; thus we learn that in the year 1648 of the Christian era one-half of the wall of the fortified city, as well as churches, mosques and private houses, were shattered by successive shocks and fell to the ground. [91] But it is at least doubtful whether posterity has been deprived of many treasures by this agency or by the scourge of such a destroyer as Timur. Van must have occupied a subordinate position among the capitals of the Achæmenian empire; and her ancient temples, together with the structures of her former magnificence, appear to have been demolished at a very early date. A restoration is ascribed to an Armenian king of the Haykian dynasty, who is said to have lived a little prior to the Asiatic conquests of Alexander the Great. But the very fact that this monarch is named Van, and is related to have rechristened the city of Semiramis after himself, invests the story with a fabulous character. [92] Greater credit may be attached to the statement of Moses of Khorene that the place was rebuilt by the first ruler of the Armenian line of the Arsakid or Parthian kings. [93] A colony of Jews, with the high priest of their nation, were settled in Van by one of his successors, the contemporary of King Mithridates of Pontus and his ally against the Roman Power. [94] These Jewish captives appear to have prospered in their new seats; and about the middle of the fourth century of our era they are said to have numbered 18,000 families, who were again transported into captivity, this time into Persia, by the ruler of the new empire which had arisen in Asia, the Sasanian king Shapur. [95] Neither Arsakids nor Sasanians appear to have laid much store by the city; and, indeed, the centres of political gravity in the Asiatic world had undergone a marked change since Assyrian times. The tableland of Persia had become incorporated into the imperial systems of Asia, giving ready access into the Armenian highlands. Europe had already appeared upon the changing scene of Oriental despotisms, and the real struggle was between the East and the West. When the Mohammedan empire of the caliphs had supplanted that of the Sasanian fire-worshippers, Persia and Armenia formed parts of the new structure. With the decay of the edifice it might appear that a fresh era had dawned for the Christian Armenians, supported on the west by their co-religionists of the Byzantine dominions, and capable of fortifying Van against the assaults of the Arabs operating from Baghdad and the lowlands in the south. In such circumstances was born the Armenian kingdom of Vaspurakan, which flourished for awhile during the Middle Ages, and of which this city was the capital. We have already glanced at its history while pursuing the annals of its contemporary at Ani, and have had to deplore the lack of cohesion among the Armenians at that period, which precluded them from playing a part of first-rate importance in the world movements of the time. We have seen the kinglets of Van bowing the head to the Seljuk invasion and creeping for safety into the bosom of the Byzantine empire. [96] Perhaps we have not overlooked the picturesque interest of the pact they concluded, under which the heirs of the Romans took over the city of Sarduris and Menuas as an outpost of the civilised world. After the Byzantines had been carried away by the storm of barbarism the annals of Van, in so far as it is possible to follow them, are of scarcely more than local interest. The place must have settled down to that long spell of half-conscious existence under which it sleeps and heaves and moans at the present day. Its garrison of Turkomans offered a prolonged resistance to the armies of Timur; and, if the citadel was indeed virgin after the lapse of ages, to the savage Tartar belongs the boast of having torn her defences away. When Van was visited by a European traveller at the commencement of the sixteenth century, the Persian Shahs of the Safavid dynasty were in nominal ownership and a Kurdish chieftain in real possession of the fortress. This individual went so far as to coin money with his own stamp; but he was ejected after a prolonged siege by the general of Shah Ismail the First (A.D. 1502-24) and the inhabitants brought over to Persian allegiance. [97] In the year 1534 the keys of the city were brought to the vizier of the Ottoman sultan, Suleyman the First. [98] The Ottoman Turks thus became masters of a fortress on the side of Persia which they converted into one of the strongest places in their empire. In the seventeenth century it is said to have fallen to Shah Abbas I., [99] but it was recovered by the Turks. Their rule has perpetuated the abuses of the Kurds; and in the forties of the nineteenth century Van was again in the tender keeping of a rebellious chief of that turbulent people, Khan Mahmud.

In spite of all these revolutions the Armenian people still maintain themselves in large numerical preponderance in the city and neighbourhood of Van. It was about the shores of this lake that, according to their traditions, their ancestor, Hayk, established some of their earliest seats. For at least 2500 years they have kept their hold upon them, and have become accustomed and inured to see the empires come and pass, reaping their harvest of tears from the Armenian peasantry. Since the impressions which I am about to record were committed to paper a fresh massacre has decimated their community. And now, as I put them together, comes a piteous appeal from the American missionaries, despairing of preserving the lives of the famished survivors who have lost their livelihood, but begging for help on behalf of their crowded orphanages. The perspective of history helps to correct the sentiment of blank despondency engendered by the contemporary condition of the Armenian inhabitants. At the time of my visit they numbered two-thirds of the population of the town and gardens of Van. This proportion has no doubt been reduced by recent events; but it is almost equally certain to be redressed. The fecundity of this people is not less remarkable than their persistency; and their presence is needed by the officials who exploit the land. It would seem that the Armenian inhabitants of Van have been increasing during the present century. There can be little doubt that the proportion which their numbers bear to those of the Mussulmans has been tending to become greater. Consul Brant records that in the year 1838 Van contained not less than 7000 families, of which only 2000 are ascribed by him to the Armenians. [100] This estimate represents a population of about 35,000 souls, of whom 25,000 would be Mussulmans and 10,000 Armenians. The total agrees approximately with the most reliable statistics which I was able to obtain. At the time of my visit the town, including the gardens, was believed to be inhabited by 30,000 people; but the Mussulmans numbered only 10,000 to the 20,000 of the Armenians. I received the impression that these figures were correct in respect of the proportion of the Armenian and the Mussulman element. In the aggregate they appeared to be a little too low. If we include the population of the caza or neighbourhood of Van, we shall probably not err much in arriving at a total of at least 64,000, made up of 47,000 Armenians and 17,000 Mussulmans. Consul Taylor in 1868 reckoned the inhabitants "of Van and the neighbourhood," by which he would appear to mean of the town and caza, at 17,000 Mussulmans and 42,000 Christians. For Christians one might almost write Armenians. [101]

When one contemplates the vast extent of the garden suburbs and the closely-packed quarters of the walled town, it is difficult to believe that not more than 30,000 people inhabit so imposing a place. Let my reader refer to the plan which accompanies this chapter. I based it originally on one published in the fine book of M. Müller-Simonis, [102] and I filled it in during my daily rides. It at once enables me to dispense with a tedious topographical narrative, and serves to show the distribution of Armenians and Mussulmans. On the left of the paper is represented the rock of Van with the cuneiform inscriptions and the city or fortified town at its southern base. On the right extends the hill ridge of Toprak Kala, commencing on the west with the bold crag of Ak Köpri, and making a bay towards the gardens as it stretches in an easterly direction, presenting the side of what is actually a nearly meridional mass. Between the two lies the plain--a bower of leafy gardens, most dense along a line drawn south of Ak Köpri, but continuing westwards from the southerly outskirts of those thickly-planted quarters to the district of Shamiram or Semiramis, south of the citadel. Mussulmans and Armenians are distributed over the area of these suburbs, and they share between them the population of the walled town. Some quarters in the gardens are peopled exclusively by Armenians, some by Mussulmans, and some by both alike. The names which I have placed upon the plan are in some cases those of quarters, and in others of blocks of houses and enclosures. The citadel or rock of Van is occupied by the garrison alone, and none of the townsmen are permitted to ascend that delicious platform.

The tall poplars and luxuriant undergrowth hide the houses of the suburbs as you approach Van from the plain in the south. But penetrate within the foliage and you will find clusters of habitations which grow in frequency and importance as the central avenue is reached. Along that well-trodden thoroughfare--filled at morning or in the evening by a stream of pedestrians and riders, wearing the fez and more rarely the turban, some in flowing Oriental robes, others attired in European dress--a number of stately residences abut on the road with their gardens around them, and dissemble the squalor which for the most part reigns within. Extremely picturesque are some of these lofty houses, with verandahs disposed in various and fanciful manners, as may be seen in my illustration of the dwelling of a wealthy Armenian inside the precincts of the walled city (Fig. 127). The fact that a large number of the inhabitants of the garden town proceed daily to their different places of business in the city partly accounts for the paradoxical smallness of the population, which ebbs and flows between the two. Here in the gardens are the private residences of the Vali or Governor of Van and of the principal officials. Most of the rich Armenian merchants have their dwellings among these quarters, where are also situated the various European Consulates. It is here that are housed the principal schools, and are located the most considerable of the churches. It is therefore scarcely correct to speak of the garden town as a suburb; far rather does it bear to the narrow and crowded streets at the base of the citadel a relation analogous to that of the West End of London towards the City and the Strand.