United States or Bangladesh ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


About the middle of the eight century, Constantine, surnamed Copronymus by the worshippers of images, had made an expedition into Armenia, and found, in the cities of Melitene and Theodosiopolis, a great number of Paulicians, his kindred heretics.

During the winter the king of Cappadocia had silently provided vessels for transport; with these the Euphrates was crossed at Melitene, and the further march was directed by way of the Taurus-passes to the Tigris.

The Egyptian dominion was acknowledged as far north as Mount Amanus. Carchemish, soon to become a Hittite stronghold, was in Egyptian hands, and the Hittites themselves had not yet emerged from the fortresses of the Taurus. Their territory was still confined to Kataonia and Armenia Minor between Melitênê and the Saros, and they courted the favour of the Egyptian monarch by sending him gifts.

From Tauric Armenia and the land of Celesene the River Euphrates, flowing to the right of the Tigris, flows around an extensive territory, and since many rivers join it and among them the Arsinus, whose copious stream flows down from the land of the so-called Persarmenians, it becomes naturally a great river, and flows into the land of the people anciently called White Syrians but now known as the Lesser Armenians, whose first city, Melitene, is one of great importance.

But the review of his loss, and the consciousness of his danger, determined Chosroes to a speedy retreat: he burnt, in his passage, the vacant town of Melitene; and, without consulting the safety of his troops, boldly swam the Euphrates on the back of an elephant.

Sharduris III., son of Argistis, succeeded to the throne of Armenia about 760, and at once overran the district of Babilu, carrying by storm three royal castles, 23 cities, and 60 villages. He also captured the castles of the mountaineers of Melitene. Crossing Mount Taurus about 756, he forced the Hittites to swear allegiance.

Cappadocia especially was the object of his attacks, and, defenceless as it was, suffered destructive blows from its too potent neighbour. Tigranes wrested the eastern province Melitene from Cappadocia, and united it with the opposite Armenian province Sophene, by which means he obtained command of the passage of the Euphrates with the great thoroughfare of traffic between Asia Minor and Armenia.

He warred successively in Susiana, in Syria, on the borders of Egypt, in the tract beyond Amanus, in Melitene and southern Armenia, in Kurdistan, in Media, and in Babylonia. During the first fifteen years of his reign, the space which his annals cover, he kept his subjects employed in a continual series of important expeditions, never giving himself, nor allowing them, a single year of repose.

The empire still included the original patrimony of Assur and its ancient colonies on the Upper Tigris, but the buffer provinces, containing the tribes on the borders of Syria, Namri, Nairi, Melitene, had thrown off the yoke, as had the Arameans, while Menuas of Armenia and his son Argistis had by their invasions laid waste the Median territory.

The two armies encountered each other in the battle of Melitene: the Barbarians, who darkened the air with a cloud of arrows, prolonged their line, and extended their wings across the plain; while the Romans, in deep and solid bodies, expected to prevail in closer action, by the weight of their swords and lances.