Commerce was greatly developed during the reign of Leon II, who granted special privileges to the Genoese and Venetian merchants (31). The important land routes that crossed Cilicia brought there many products from Central Asia, and these, in addition to local products, were exported or exchanged for the wares of the European traders. Corycus and especially Ayas (Lajazzo) had good harbors; moreover, many of the inland cities were connected with the sea through navigable rivers. The transformation of the Armenian court, following the pattern [651] of the Frankish courts, proceeded at a more rapid pace after Leon came to power. Many of the old names of specific functions or the titles of dignitaries were replaced by Latin ones and the changes in nomenclature were often accompanied by changes in the character of these offices. The ancient feudal system of Armenia was also gradually modified in imitation of western feudalism; the barons lost some of the independence which the nakharars had enjoyed and were bound by closer ties to the king. Finally, in matters of law, the authority of the Latin Assizes constantly increased until the Armenians fully adopted the Assizes of Antioch, translated by the constable Sempad during the reign of Leon's successor (32).

Leon died in 1219. He had named his young daughter Isabel as his rightful heiress and had released the barons from their oath of allegiance to Raymond Roupen. But the latter had several strong supporters and he tried to seize the power with their assistance. He was defeated, however, after a few initial successes, and died in captivity (33). To avoid further complications, the regent, Constantine of Lampron, decided to find a husband for the young princess; his choice fell on Philip, the fourth son of Bohemond IV of Antioch (34). The joint rule of Isabel and Philip lasted only a short while; Philip's disdain for the Armenian ritual, which he had promised to respect, and his marked favoritism to the Latin barons angered the Armenian nobility; he was deposed, imprisoned, and died in captivity through poisoning (35).

Despite her determined resistance (36) Isabel was next married to [652] the regent's own son Hetoum, and the long antagonism between the two powerful feudal families of the Roupenids and the Hetoumids of Lampron was thus brought to an end (1226). The early years of Hetoum I's reign were relatively peaceful. Relations with Antioch, though strained, did not lead to hostile acts, for Bohemond IV was beset by too many difficulties to resort to arms (37). There was greater unrest along the Selchukid border. In 1233 Kai-Qobad I invaded Cilicia and imposed a tribute upon the Armenians (38). Selchukid troops entered the country again (1245-1246), after Hetoum had acceded to the Mongol general Baiju's demand and delivered to him the wife and daughter of Kai-Khusrau II, who had sought refuge at the Armenian court at the time of the Mongol attack on Iconium. Though helped by the Armenian baron, Constantine (II) of Lampron, the regent's namesake, in revolt against king Hetoum, Kai-Khusrau could only seize a few forts which the Mongols, some years later, forced him to return.

The Mongols were the most serious menace, and it was Hetoum's realization of this that had forced him to betray the laws of hospitality and to send a deferential message to their general Baiju. The Mongol hordes had swept through Armenia and Georgia, far into Anatolia, and Hetoum early recognized that only an alliance with them could save his kingdom. Consequently he sent his brother, the constable Sempad, on an official embassy to Karakorum (39). Sempad left Cilicia in 1247 and returned in 1250 with a diploma guaranteeing the integrity of the Cilician kingdom, and the promise of Mongol aid to recapture the forts seized by the Selchukids.

In 1253 Hetoum himself set out to visit the new Great Khan Mongke at Karakorum. He was the first ruler to come to the Mongol court of his own accord, and was received with great honors. The assurances given by Mongke's predecessor Goyuk were renewed and expanded; Mongke further promised to free [653] from taxation the Armenian churches and monasteries in Mongol territory (40). Hetoum's dominating idea was not merely to preserve his own kingdom and to obtain protection for the Christians under Mongol rule, but to enlist the Khan's help in freeing the Holy Land from the Moslems.

Hetoum returned in 1256 encouraged by these promises and laden with gifts. On his way out he had passed through Greater Armenia; on his return voyage he remained much longer there, receiving visits from many of the local princes as well as from the bishops and abbots. Leon II had considered himself king of all the Armenians, and had stamped this title on some of his coins, but this was the first time that a ruler of Cilicia had come into direct contact with the population of the mother country.

Hetoum tried to win the Latin princes over to the idea of a Christian-Mongol alliance, but could convince only Bohemond VI of Antioch. For his part, he remained faithful to the clauses of the understanding with the Mongols. He visited several times the court of the Il-khans and gave his military assistance whenever it was needed. Armenian troops fought side by side with the Mongols in Anatolia and in Syria, and the successes of the Mongols enabled Hetoum to recover, in addition to the Cilician forts taken by the Selchukids, some of the territories which had once belonged to Kogh Vasil.

Thus the Armenians at first benefitted from their alliance with the Mongols. Hetoum was also successful in his encounters with Kilij Arslan IV, whom he defeated in 1259, and with the Turkomans established on the western borders of Cilicia. He routed their bands, mortally wounded their leader Karaman, and freed the region of Seleucia from their attacks (1263) (41). But the Armenians were soon to experience the counter-effects of their alliance, especially when, after the defeat of Kitbogha at 'Ain Jalut and the loss of Damascus and Aleppo, Mongol power weakened in Syria; they were to be among the principal victims of the formidable enemy of both Mongols and Christians, the Egyptian sultan Baybars (43).

Hetoum tried to negotiate with Baybars, and embassies were exchanged, but the sultan made excessive demands and Hetoum, seeing that war was imminent, went to Tabriz to seek Mongol help. However, Baybars precipitated his action; the Mamluk armies [654] and their ally al-Mansur II of Hamah invaded Cilicia, passing through the Amanus Gates instead of trying to force a passage through the Syrian Gates (1266). The Armenians, commanded by the constable Sempad and the two young princes, Toros and Leon, resisted valiantly, but they were hopelessly outnumbered. Toros was slain, Leon and Sempad's son Vasil, surnamed the Tatar, were taken prisoner, and the enemy armies devastated the entire country for twenty days without meeting further resistance. They sacked Mamistra, Adana, Ayas, Tarsus, and smaller localities; at Sis they set fire to the cathedral and forced the treasury, taking all the gold that had been assembled there. They slaughtered thousands of the inhabitants and carried many more as captives to Egypt. When Hetoum returned he found his country in ruins, and distraught by this fatal blow and by his personal sorrow, he waited only for the return of Leon from captivity to abdicate and seek solace in a monastery.

Baybars imposed very heavy conditions; the Armenians were forced to cede all the forts of the Amanus and their conquests along the Syrian border, with the exception of Behesni. Leon was set free only when Hetoum had been able to obtain from Abagha, after repeated requests, the release of Baybars' favorite, Shams-ad-Din Sungur al-Ashkar, captured by the Mongols at Aleppo.

Cilicia was now surrounded by the Moslems; Antioch had fallen, the Templars had abandoned Baghras and the neighboring forts, the road thus lay open before Baybars. The Mongols were the only allies who could give effective assistance against the Egyptians, even though their position was much less strong than it had been at the time of Hulagu. When Leon was freed, Hetoum, therefore, took him to Abagha in order to have him recognized as his heir, and after Hetoum's abdication (1269) Leon returned to the court of the Il-khans to have his title confirmed. Leon III believed, as his father had, in a Mongol-Christian alliance which would save the Holy Land; he made repeated pleas to the western powers; Abagha also sent envoys to the popes and to Edward I of England, without any success. It is not certain that common action was possible or would have been successful, but in the absence of any concerted opposition the Mamluks were free to continue their conquests, to seize, as they did a few years later, all the Latin possessions in Syria and Palestine, and in the latter part of the fourteenth century to destroy the Armenian kingdom of CiJicia.

The wars waged by Baybars elsewhere gave Leon III a few years' respite at the beginning of his reign, and he tried to heal the [655] ravages caused by the Mamluk invasion. New privileges were granted to the Venetian merchants in 1271; Ayas was rebuilt and became again an active commercial center. Marco Polo, who visited it in 1271, speaks of it as "a city good and great and of great trade", adding that "all the spicery and the cloths of silk and of gold and of wool from inland are carried to this town" (43). As the Egyptians captured the Syrian and Palestinian sea ports the importance of Ayas grew; it was one of the chief outlets to the Mediterranean for the goods brought from Central Asia, but its importance and wealth made it at the same time one of the principal targets of the Egyptians.

Mamluk attacks began again in 1275; in a rapid but devastating raid they advanced as far as Corycus. At the same time the Turkomans entered Cilicia from the west and, though repulsed, continued to raid the border lands year after year. Internal dissension and revolts of some of the barons created further difficulties for Leon during these years when there was almost no direct Mongol assistance. The invasion of Syria in 1281 was the most serious undertaking by the Il-khans in these parts since the death of Hulagu; the Armenians fought at the side of the Mongols, but the Egyptian sultan Kalavun, having won the neutrality of the Franks, was able to defeat the Mongol and Armenian forces.

Lawless bands of Mongols, Egyptians, Turkomans, and Kurds pillaged Cilicia; they set fire to Ayas and looted the warehouses abandoned by the population, who had fled to a new fortress built out in the sea. The emissaries sent to Egypt by Leon to ask for peace were detained as prisoners until the master of the Templars intervened. Another factor may have been instrumental in modifying the Egyptian attitude: the new Mongol Il-khan, Arghun, was favorable to the Christians; Leon had gone to his court to pay his respects, and Kalavun may have feared Mongol intervention. A ten-year truce was signed on June 6, 1285; the conditions were extremely onerous--an annual tribute of one million dirhems--moreover, numerous privileges were granted to the Egyptians (44). The peace won at such high cost was to be broken before the ten years had elapsed.

After the fall of Acre and Tripoli, when Egyptian armies had reached Homs, Hetoum II, who had succeeded his father Leon III in 1289, tried to appease them by offering a large sum of money; [656] the sultan al-Ashraf accepted this, merely postponing his invasion until he had completed the conquest of the Frankish territories. In the spring of 1292, he marched on the patriarchal see of Hromgla. The citadel resisted for thirty-three days and was finally taken by assault on May 11. Terrible slaughter followed; many of the monks were killed, others were carried into captivity together with the catholicus Stephen IV himself. The Egyptians looted the churches and the residence of the catholicus; they destroyed or stole the precious relics and church treasures (45). The capture of Hromgla was celebrated as a great victory; the sultan wrote to the qadi Ibn-al-Khuwaiyi to announce the event; he was received with special honors at Damascus, and for seven days the trumpets continued to sound in the cathedral and candles burned all through the night (46).

The Egyptians did not immediately enter Cilicia, but in May 1293 the army stationed at Damascus received orders to march on Sis. Ambassadors were sent in great haste by the Armenians; they were forced to cede the remaining fortresses on the eastern front--Behesni, Marash, and Tall Hamdun, and to double the tribute they had been paying theretofore.

The murder of the sultan al-Ashraf late in 1293, the troubled reign of the usurper Kitbogha, and the famine and plague which spread in Egypt and Syria gave a breathing-spell to the Armenians. Hetoum, who had abdicated in favor of his brother Toros III in 1292, was urged to return two years later (47). He strengthened the ties with Cyprus--the only other Christian kingdom surviving in the Levant--by giving his sister Isabel in marriage to Amalric, the brother of king Henry II. He also tried to revive the Mongol alliance and set out to visit the Il-khan Baidu. While he was waiting at Maragha, where he was able to save from destruction the Syrian church erected by Rabban Sauma and to protect the Nestorian patriarch Mar Yabhalaha III, Ghazan wrested the power from Baidu. Hetoum went to pay him homage. From Ghazan he received the assurance that the Christian churches would not be destroyed, and it is probable that he also received the promise of military assistance (48). On his return to Sis in 1295 he arranged a marriage [657] between his sister Rita and Michael IX, the son and associate of Andronicus II Palaeologus; in order to establish an alliance with the Byzantine empire, he went in person to Constantinople, accompanied by his brother Toros. But during his absence another brother, Sempad, who had won the support of the catholicus Gregory VII and of pope Boniface VIII) seized power (1296).

Cilicia was torn by this internal strife. Hetoum, returning from his fruitless journey to obtain the support of the Mongols, was intercepted near Caesarea by Sempad, and imprisoned together with his brother Toros; Toros was strangled and Hetoum partially blinded. Sempad was overthrown by his younger brother Constantine, who freed Hetoum but retained the power (1298). A year later Hetoum, having recovered his sight, resumed the kingship for the third time and exiled his brothers Sempad and Constantine to Constantinople, where they died.

These fratricidal wars and the discords which reigned also among the Mongols encouraged the Egyptians to invade Cilicia once again. In 1298 their armies sacked Adana and Mamistra and took eleven fortresses. Among these were Marash and Tall Hamdun, which the Armenians had ceded some years earlier, but which they had apparently recovered in the meantime.

Hetoum still counted on the Mongols to defeat the Egyptians, and it seemed, for a short time, that his hopes were to be fulfilled. The Syrian expedition led by the Il-khan Ghazan, whom Hetoum joined at the head of 5,000 men, routed the Mamluk army near Homs in December 1299. But Ghazan departed shortly after and the Egyptians recovered Syria. A second campaign in 1301 was seriously hampered by bad weather, and the third expedition, in 1303, ended in disaster. The Mongol forces were decimated, many of the soldiers were drowned in the flooded waters of the Euphrates; Hetoum retreated with the remnants of the Mongol army and went to the court of Ghazan before returning to Cilicia.

The road to Cilicia again lay open before the Moslems. Already in 1302 the emir of Aleppo had made a rapid raid, burning the harvest and gathering vast booty. In July 1304 the Egyptians took Tall Hamdun) which Hetoum had recovered after the Mongol victory of 1299. They returned to Cilicia the following year and, although the Armenians, helped by a company of Mongols who had come to collect the annual tribute, inflicted heavy losses on them, they were defeated after the arrival of fresh Egyptian troops. Marino Sanudo summarizes in graphic terms the unhappy state of the country. "The king of Armenia," he writes, "is under the [658] fangs of four ferocious beasts--the lion, or the Tartars, to whom he pays a heavy tribute; the leopard, or the Sultan, who daily ravages his frontiers; the wolf, or the Turks, who destroy his power; and the serpent, or the pirates of our seas, who worry the very bones of the Christians of Armenia" (49). The difficulties increased when the Mongols were converted to Islam, for then the Armenians not only lost all hope of assistance but were subjected to religious persecution.

In 1305 Hetoum abdicated in favor of his nephew Leon IV and once again retired to a monastery, but Leon's reign, already troubled by internal strife, in particular the opposition which the pro-papal policy of Hetoum and the catholicus had stirred up, came to an abrupt end on November 17, 1307. The Mongol emir Bilarghu treacherously killed Hetoum, king Leon, and about forty of the dignitaries and nobles who accompanied them (50).

The Armenian barony, later the kingdom of Cilicia, fighting against tremendous odds, had not only maintained its existence for over two centuries, but had attained an important position during the reign of Leon II and part of that of Hetoum I. It had valorously played its part in the crusades, continuing the struggle, together with the kingdom of Cyprus, after the destruction of the other Christian realms of the Levant.

The history of constant warfare, invasions, destructions, and plunder, briefly sketched above, may tend to obscure the very real cultural achievements of the period, which can only be recalled here in a few words. Along with original histories, literary works, and theological writings, we find numerous translations from Greek, Syriac, and even Arabic, but the most significant are the translations from Latin which appear for the first time in Armenian [659] literature. Various members of the house of Lampron figure prominently among the authors of this period, both as original writers and as translators, and it is worthy of note that some of them, like the constable Sempad, were laymen.

The Armenian rulers founded and endowed numerous monasteries. It can be seen from the ruined remains, as well as from literary evidence, that these monasteries and churches, and even the military constructions, did not compare favorably with the splendid monuments erected in the past in Armenia proper, but some of the foundations of this period are interesting from a different point of view, for instance, the hospital founded by queen Isabel, where she herself often tended the sick and the poor. If architecture did not develop greatly in the Cilician kingdom, the minor arts on the other hand attained a degree of excellence. The illuminated manuscripts of this period, which rival in quality the best products of medieval art, are also outstanding witnesses of the remarkable resilience of the people, for many of the finest examples were produced in the most adverse circumstances, and at times when the very existence of the country was threatened.

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