Armenia, Travels and Studies (Volume 2 of 2): The Turkish ProvincesLynch, H. F. B. (Harry Finnis Blosse)
History
Armenia, Travels and Studies (Volume 2 of 2): The Turkish Provinces
Lynch, H. F. B. (Harry Finnis Blosse)
Armenia
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account