Aristakes Lastivertc'i's

History

What shall I say in condemnation of the women? The words spoken by Isaiah are sufficient, there is no need for my own composition. He rebuked the women of Jerusalem for their showy immodesty: [81] "The daughters of Zion are haughty and walk with outstretched necks" [Isaiah 3.16]. I consider arrogance to be the root of all evil, the mother and first cause of it. For it turns a human into a dew and subjects [humans] to their torments. This disease is damaging to all, but especially so to womankind. First and foremost [women] should be charged with this [fault], and then one might recall their heavy [trains] which they drag along the ground, the earrings, finger-rings, bracelets, the ruffles, necklaces, and everything else. Listener, behold their recompense: "In place of golden ornaments for the hair, there will be baldness" [Isaiah, 3.24] for, stripped of headdresses, their hair shall be cut off to mock them. In place of a golden belt there will be one of rope, and instead of a rich robe, a girdling of sackcloth" [Isaiah 3.24], for when they are led away into slavery, their captors shall give them these things.

I did not mention all this without cause; rather, to illustrate that our chastisement shall be equal to [g76] or more severe than the [nature of] our transgressions. [82] Now if they [the Jerusalemites] suffered such things, lacking an example [of proper conduct], how much more worthy of punishment are we, having them as an example and having the advice of Christ Who cried out and said: "Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven" [Matthew 5.20]. We did not surpass them in righteousness, but in sin; therefore what pardon or forgiveness shall we have?

See now the similarity of righteous punishments. The Persians came against Jerusalem, and they also came against us; they laid waste Jerusalem, and they also wasted our cities; pagans entered the holy temple [of Jerusalem], took its adornments as booty, and defiled the blessed temple; and they also entered our churches, daring to go to the holy altars which they sullied with their filthy heels, and took its adornments as plunder. The holy temple was consumed by fire, yet in our case, instead of that one house [of God], they burned down many churches. Countless numbers of their priests fell to the sword, but who can count how many of our [priests] perished? It is now time for me to follow David and to create our lament [83] based on his: "Why do You stand afar off, oh Lord? Why do You hide Yourself in our times of trouble" [Psalms 10.1]? When the unjust behave impiously in Your sanctuaries when those who despise You boast during Your feast days? Behold, pagans have entered Your inheritance, have polluted Your blessed temple, have burned Your holy things, and levelled to the ground the glory of Your Church. They made the blood of Your servants flow like water, not as it was in the past, around the city of Jerusalem alone, but [here] the entire country was filled with the blood of the slain. As for the number buried, the mind cannot even immagine it [g77].

Who can put into writing the diverse and unbelievable disasters that were visited upon our city? It was [here] as was written about the Sodomites: "The sun had risen on the earth, and the Lord rained on Sodom brimstrone and fire, and burned it" [Genesis 19.23-24]. So it happened here that when the sun rose on the earth, an impious people, like famished dogs, arrived, surrounded the city, entered, and like reapers [working] in a field, they reaped with their swords until they had snuffed out the city's life. Mercilessly setting fire to the homes and churches wherein refugees [84] had fled, [the Saljuqs] burned them down, considering this a benevolent act, just as the Savior had prophesied: "Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God" [John 16.2]. He Himself made the reason clear: "They shall so deal with you for My name's sake, since you did not recognize Me" [John 15.21].

The weather also was an aid on this destructive day. An extremely severe wind howled, stirring up the fire so much that smoke rose to the sky in thick billows. The flaming columns of fire vanquished the rays of the sun. One could see there a pitiful and terrifying spectacle in the extreme, for the entire city—the bazars, the lanes, and the great chambers—was full of the corpses of the slain. Who can count those burned to death? Those who had escaped from the glittering sword, and taken refuge in houses, were immolated, one and all. As regards the priests, those whom they caught in the churches, they burned to death; those they found outside, they killed and, to insult and disgrace us, put huge hogs [g78] in their arms. The number of priests who died by fire and sword, lords of diocese and church, we found to be more than 150. But as for those who had come from all other lands, and happened to be there, who can count them?

[85] Such is your wicked history, oh city, blessed and venerable, full [of good things], renowned among the lands. Raise now your eyes and observe your children led into slavery, your babies hurled mercilessly against rocks, your young people burned by fire, the respect-worthy and glorious elderly folk fallen in the squares, your fresh and prosperous virgins and women fallen in disgrace, led away into slavery on foot. David's lamenting songs were fulfilled regarding us: "Their might was betrayed to slavery, their villages, into the enemies' hands" [Psalms 77.61], and so forth. But Christ was late in awakening, and it was not [here] as it had been at that [Biblical] time.

Let the narration of Arcn's sad history end at this point, for we were unable to record every evil event. Let whoever wants to learn of our omission look in the ruins. We have written the pitiful account of two places, of the mountain and of the city. We have written only about what we saw with our own eyes, and about the wicked things we ourselves experienced. As for the disasters which befell the other districts and cities, who is strong enough [to record them]? Much time and many words would be [86] needed for that. We abbreviated our [account] as much as possible [g79].

13. Regarding the Great War Which Occurred on the Plain of Basen, Where the Byzantines Were Defeated.


The prophet Isaiah, when prophesying the destruction of Egypt said: "The princes of Tayan [Zoan] are utterly foolish; the wise counselors of Pharaoh give stupid counsel" [Isaiah 19.11]. We encountered the same thing here. For the Byzantine cavalry, guarding the Eastern land were not few in number. They say that the army had as many as 60,000 men. Its heads were Kamenas, which translates "fire," who held sway over Armenia, and Aharon, son of Bulghar, who held the Vaspurakan region, and Grigor, the mighty prince of Armenia, who held the dignity of magister. Just as the Bible says, that the rule of many princes will be confused, inappropriate and subject to dissolution, so it was with these [men]. While they should have called for assistance upon the granter of victory, lord God, with firm unity, as victors in the past were wont to do, "For the mighty grows strong not through his own strength, [87] but because the Lord weakens his adversary's power" [I Kings 2.9-10], they did not think to do so. The impious committed impious acts, and they thought that by human cleverness they could quench the blaze of that frightful fire. Consequently they fell into confusion, and no one approved of the next one's counsel. For God had removed sense from their heads since they had not sought [help] from Him. This is quite clear from their actions, for they expected Liparit to come to [their] aid. They resembled the diseased Saul who ran to a wizard, or the Jews who piled their [g80] treasures onto camels and took them to a people from whom there was no hope of aid. They did not remember what David did to that mountain of meat who had insulted Israel with great boasting, that merely a jawbone was sufficient to smash his brains. [They did not think of] Ezekiel who laid low 180,000 Assyrians with prayers alone, with the aid of the angel, with an invisible sword.

Then Liparit arrived, after [receiving] many entreaties and generous gifts of treasure; but he was unable to accomplish anything, for they themselves were disunited. Thus, when the battle had commenced, Bulghar's son and his people took to flight, encouraging [88] the enemy. [The latter] urged each other on with loud cries. They trapped Liparit and his brave warriors in their midst, killing some of them, cutting [Liparit's] horse's sinews with a sword and taking [Liparit] himself captive. When the rest of the troops saw this, they turned in flight. The enemy pursued, killing an incalculable number of them; some they killed with the sword, but many, since it was evening, they threw [to their deaths] from lofty places and caves. The remainder, naked and robbed, went on foot wherever they could, and survived. Laden with an extremely great quantity of booty, the enemy was delighted, while our [people] were full of woes and laments. From that day forth resembling carnivorous dogs or jackals [the Saljuqs] were never satiated on Christian blood, until they had completely done away with [the people]. The entire country was like a field ready for reaping; following the reapers came the sheave-binders, and [g81] [the sheaves] were taken, and only the gleanings and stubble were left as fodder for deer. After the victorious battle, [the Saljuqs] took plunder and slaves and entered their own land, and every country was filled up with an immeasurable amount of loot. Now they [89] took the Georgian prince [Liparit] and gave him to the Caliph as though [he were] a great treasure, more pleasing to him than all the other captives. [The Caliph] accepted him with thanks, and peaceably released him to return to his own land with great gifts. Enough of this for now.

14. How Long the Patriarch Petros Remained in Constantinople, or How He Returned.


When the [Byzantine] king saw [Petros], he received him with great respect and honor, and commanded that [Petros] be honored with a generous stipend. However he kept him there with him for three years, fearing that if he let him return to Armenia, [Petros] would go and incite Ani to rebell. Now Senek'erim's son, Atom, took [Petros] gratefully and brought him to his city, Sebastupolis. [Atom] gave him as a dwelling-place the retreat of the Holy Cross, which he himself had constructed with numerous well-appointed embellishments and resplendent beauty. [Petros] remained there for two years, and then passed to Christ. [90] They established in his position his sister's son, Xach'ik, who had received the ordination for the patriarchate long ago [Xach'ik II Anets'i, 1058-1065]. As soon as the king heard about this, he sent messengers, and had [Xach'ik] and all his treasures there and in Armenia brought to him. For Petros had been a great lover of treasure, and on account of this many [people] chided him. Now after three years, lord Xach'ik was released from the royal city. He came to the borders of Third Armenia to the district called Tarnta, and stayed there, for they had ordered him to settle in that spot [g82].

Now the reason that he had tarried in Constantinople was this: they wanted to place him under taxation. However [Xach'ik] refused [arguing that] "What was not [a practise] before my own time, I shall not accept either." Subsequently, despite the fact that they subjected him to much inquistion and added the threat that "You shall not leave here until you do as we command," nonetheless that venerable man, the substitute for our great Illuminator [St. Gregory] was in no way frightened by their words, rather he held fast. After this two Byzantines came forward, one a prince, the other a monk. I do not know whether they did [what they did] in order to make him emulate them [91] or in good faith, but they requested superintendency of the [Armenian] church, and [promised] to pay the tax. Both were wickedly killed. Finally, repenting, [the Byzantine emperor] released Xach'ik without the tax, giving him a written document sealed with [the king's] gold ring indicating what sites in Armenia were theirs, and [giving him] two monasteries in Tarnta.

15. Regarding How Terribly the City Called Kars Was Struck.


For a long time this city [Kars] had had no experience with evils [warfare] and so [the people] dwelled unconcernedly and without suspicions therein, grown rich with much merchandise acquired by sea and by land. Now during [the festival] of the Revelation of Our Lord, in the evening, when the ranks of the priesthood together with great crowds of the people were celebrating the mass of the day, [singing] with joyous voices, the troops of the infidels unexpectedly attacked. Because the city was without a night-watch, they entered. Putting swords to work, they mercilessly killed everybody, a history meriting much lamentation. It was the custom of the city's men, women, elderly, and youths [each] according [92] to strength and ability, on the Lord's feastdays, to ornament himself or herself with many adornments, such that they resembled spring gardens. When these [people] were thus chanced upon, suddenly the city became filled with sighs and lamentations. Priests were silenced at mass, as were the psalmists [silenced] from singing psalms. The song of blessing stopped on the lips of scribes and boys. There one could have seen a spectacle most pitiable, capable of moving even the stones and inanimate objects to sighs of lament, let alone the rational and living. Well-respected and honorable merchants were wickedly slain, youths and athletes/wrestlers lay stabbed to death in the streets, and the blood-spattered heads of the elderly lay fallen near them. By such deeds was the city stripped of its population. Only the one who managed to enter the stronghold located above the city saved his life. The entire remainder of the day, [the Saljuqs] rummaged through the houses, then set the city on fire. Taking their captives and the city's plunder, they went to their own land.

16. Regarding the Sultan's Arrival.


The year after this [devastation] occurred was [the year] 503 of our [Armenian] era [1054]. Now the [93] same month, and the same date of the month as [the previous year] when [the Saljuqs] took the land captive, and burned Arcn and other cities and awans, that death-breathing, bloodthirsty and murderous beast, the Sultan [Tughril-Beg, 1055-1063], advanced [toward us] with countless troops, elephants, carts, horses, women, children, and much preparation. Skipping over Archesh and Berkri, they came and camped near the city called Manazkert in the Apahunik' district, seizing all the extensive places in the fields [i.e., the pasturelands]. [The Sultan] dispatched marauding parties across the face of the land: north as far as the stronghold of the Abkhaz and to the [g84] mountain called Parxar to the base of the Caucasus; west as far as the forests of Chanet'ia; and south as far as the place called Sim mountain. And they seized the entire land as [easily as] reapers working a field.

Who can record the evils which [the Saljuqs] then visited upon the land? Whose mind is able to enumerate them? The entire land was full of corpses—cultivated and uncultivated places, roads and desolate places, caves, craggy spots, pine groves and steep places—and [the Saljuqs] set on fire and polluted all the cultivated places, homes and churches. And the flame of that fire rose higher than [the flame of] the furnace of Babylon. In this way [94] they ruined the entire land, not once but three times, one after the other, until the country was totally devoid of inhabitants and the bellowing of animals ceased.

Bearing such misfortunes, the country donned mourning garb. It was ruined because its inhabitants were destroyed. The entire country ceased rejoicing. Everywhere lamentations and sighs were heard, everywhere there was weeping and sobbing. Nowhere were the songs of the priests heard, nor the glorification of God. Nowhere were books [read] to advise and comfort listeners, for the readers lay stabbed to death in the squares, while the books themselves had been burned and turned to ashes. Nowhere were the sounds of weddings and the glad tidings of newly-born children. The elderly did not sit in chairs in the squares, nor did the children play before them. Herds did not flock together to pasture, nor did lambs frolic about in the meadows. No more did the reaper fill his embrace with sheaves, no more was the praise of passersby heard, no longer were the threshing-floors filled with grain, nor the cisterns full of wine [g85]. Sounds of joy were not heard when the vineyards were harvested, nor were the pantries overladen with vessels. All of this vanished and is no more. Where is the Jeremiah to mourn our destruction, prolonging the lament on the roads and the [95] mountains? What Isaiah would disobey the comforters, to saturate [them] with lamentations? Woe is me that I [must] relate such things. I am as the Himen youth, a bringer of bad news, but not to one village or to one city, but to the entire world, from generation to generation until the end of time. For there is neither time nor deed which can mitigate our [suffering], except for the Evil of the desert [the Antichrist], which the Bible prophesies. Now what shall I do? Shall I leave off narrating the incredible evils which befell the Christians, sparing you, or shall I stir up the laments and sighs of all who are participants in this hellish history? Yet I know that you want to hear it. Therefore I shall stop wavering and shall write one after the next about those unbelievable disasters visited upon the major places.

When I recall Xorjean and Hanjet' [districts], and what transpired in them, my breathing becomes choked off by tears, my heart is moved to pity, my mind is dazed, trembling seizes my hands, and I am unable to continue writing. Because of the security of those places, many people, a countless number, had assembled there from the upper districts. But the infidels speedily swooped down upon them like birds, as mercilessly as wild beasts, glowering with rage like avengers, [96] and, searching through caves and the thick pine forests, they insatiably killed whomever they found. Just as in springtime, from the warmth of the air, the water starts to flow and rise, causing streams to form in the snow, innundating the land behind it, so it was [when the Saljuqs attacked]; streams of blood flowed down from the corpses of the fallen [g86], and from its coursing, the ground was innundated.

Recall what took place then [to] the class of clerics and priests who happened to be there, or [to] the elderly, or [to] the multitude of youths, whose newly-grown beards adorned their cheeks like a beautiful picture, whose ringlets of hair gleamed upon their brows resembling the glowing hues of roses, making their faces shine, [recall] how suddenly they fell to the ground and tumbled over, struck by the enemies' swords, as if struck by hail. Add to this the number of children who were taken from their mothers' embraces and hurled to the ground, who sought their mothers with their baby sighs. But the parents, cudgled, were quickly separated from them. What heart of stone would not be straitened by tears, hearing these numerous and varied [recitations] of evil? Virgins fell dishonored, newly-married women were separated from their men and led into slavery. In one single moment the country, which had been crowded with [97] people, like a densely populated city, became an uninhabited wasteland. [As for the people], they were either killed by the sword, or taken captive. Oh Christ, for your forgiveness at that time! Oh the wickedness that befell us! How bitter was the death we died!

Who is capable of describing the destruction visited upon [the districts of] Derjan and Ekegheac', and upon the area between them? Judge that one by my recitations. Now [those Saljuqs] who had entered Tayk' took the country and reached as far as the great river called Chorox. Following the course of the river, they descended into the Xaghteac' land. Taking the district's booty and slaves, they turned and came as far as the fortified city named Baberd. There they encountered a brigade of Byzantine troops [g87] called Vrhangs (Vrangk') who, at all hazards, battled with them. By God's mercy, the Byzantine brigade grew stronger, vanquished the enemy, killed the head of their troops and many with him, turned the rest to flight and retrieved all the loot and slaves. However, they did not dare to pursue the fugitives very far, since they were afraid of encountering a large force. Thanking God, those whom they freed went off to their own homes. As for those [Saljuqs] who had come against [98] Armenia, whomever they chanced upon they killed or led into captivity, and filled with plunder they turned back. When [the Saljuqs] reached the borders of Vanand, the valiant princes of Abas' son, Gagik [1029-1064], came against them and wrought great slaughter in that place. But then [additional] troops of the infidel came up and caught [the Armenians] in their midst. Because of the prolongation of the battle and the enormous destruction, [the Armenians] and their horses were exhausted. Therefore they were unable to break the enemies' blockade and come out. [The Saljuqs] putting swords to work, killed thirty of the azats.

Now they had seized a certain one of the azats, a mighty martial man named T'at'ul, whom they took before the Sultan. Because [T'at'ul] had severely wounded the son of the Persian emir, Arsuban, when the Sultan saw him he said: "If [Arsuban's son] lives, I shall free you. Otherwise, if he dies, I will order you made a sacrifice for him." A few days later, he died, Now [when first being questioned], T'at'ul had said: "If I struck him, then he will not live, but if somebody else struck him, I cannot answer for his health." When the Sultan heard that [the son] had died, he ordered [T'at'ul] killed, and had his severed right arm taken to Arsuban as consolation that [99] "Your son was not slain by a weak arm" [g88].

What need is there that I record one by one the unchecked destruction of Christians? It was as though the sea had been churned up by a severe wind, with enormous surgings, and foamy billows, crashing about on all sides of us. Suddenly the entire land became full of agitation, nor could any place of refuge be found. For due to the unbelievable evils [which had befallen us] no one had any hope of life. The Savior had prophesied this [disaster] long ago, comparing those criminal evils to an agitated sea in which many people, swooning from dread and apprehension are unable to remain conscious.

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