Armenia and Her People; or, The Story of Armenia by an ArmenianFilian, George H.
History
Armenia and Her People; or, The Story of Armenia by an Armenian
Filian, George H.
Armenia; Armenian question
One of the notable kings is Aram, the seventh in succession, and the
greatest of Armenian conquerors. He raised and drilled an army of
50,000 men, whose efficiency and his own military skill and energy
are proved by his invading and conquering Media. He then invaded
Assyria and conquered a part of that country. Next he marched
westward and subjugated some of the eastern portion of Asia Minor
inhabited by the Greeks,--the later Cappadocia, along the Halys or
Kizil-Irmak. Aram named this district the Hayasdan, translated by
the Romans as "Armenia Minor"; which, oddly enough, in later times
became Greater Armenia or Armenia Proper. Aram set over this province a
governor named Mishag, with instructions to compel the Greeks to speak
Armenian. Mishag built a city which exists in Cappadocia (Karamania)
to-day, frightfully familiar from recent events. He called it by his
own name; the Greeks mispronounced it as Mazag; the Roman emperors
afterwards named it Caesarea, which the Turks corrupted into Kayseri,
and several thousand Armenians were massacred there some months ago,
which will be described further on. The richest and most enterprising
Armenians in the Turkish Empire are from Kayseri, and it is a leading
missionary station of the American Board. The writer preached there
and in that vicinity for four years.
The enormous growth of the Armenian Kingdom under Aram, and its
conquest of part of Assyria, excited the alarm of the Assyrian king,
Ninos. Not feeling strong enough to engage in open warfare with him,
he thought to compass his destruction by winning his friendship and
then putting him out of the way, and, as a first step, sent him a
costly jeweled crown. The intrigue failed, however, and Aram lived
to a great age, reigning fifty years.
Aram was succeeded by his son Ara, called "Ara the Beautiful." The
fame of his beauty went abroad through the world; the Assyrian queen
Semiramis was so enchanted by the sight of his person that she fell
madly in love and proposed marriage to him, but he refused her. This
military Amazon was not to be balked so. She resolved to marry him
by force, and came with a great army to Armenia to capture the prize;
but he was killed in the war, and she took possession of the country,
with which she was so charmed that she decided to remain; she removed
the capital of the enlarged Assyrian Kingdom to the lovely shores of
Lake Van, erecting a palace there for herself, and building on the
eastern side a city named "Shamiramaguerd" (built by Semiramis). Many
years later, a king of the Haigazian Dynasty whose name was Van rebuilt
it and called it after himself. This was the present city of Van,
another great center of the American Board and of Turkish horrors.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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