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117 THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

117

Cleopatra of Egypt, sent an expedition to Palestine, he carried a great number of Jews into captivity, and settled them in Armavir and in Vardges. He goes on to state that later they were transferred from Armavir to Ernanda; and under King Arsaces (85-127) again transferred into the new capital Artashat. When King Sapor II. of Persia invaded Armenia (360-370), he led away from Artashat 30,000 Armenian and 9,000 Jewish families, the latter brought by King Tigranes from Palestine, and then completely destroyed the city. Bibliography: Faushis de Byzance in Langlois, Collection &es Histoires Armeniennes, i. 274, 275 Regesty i Nadpisi (Regests and Inscriptions), pub. by the Society lor the Promotion of Education Among the Jews of Russia, pp. 37 et seq.,

St.

Petersburg, 1899.

H. R.

6.

ARMENIA:

Formerly a kingdom of western Asia, now (1902) apportioned among Russia, Turkey, and Persia. According to the Peshitta and Targum Onkelos, the " Minni " of the Bible (Jer. li. 27) is Armenia or rather a part of that country, as Ararat is also mentioned (Isa. xxxvii. 38; II Kings xix. 37) as a part of Armenia. The In cuneiform inscriptions speak of " Manthe Bible, nai " in the same neighborhood (Schrader, "K. A. T." 2d ed., p. 423). In ancient times the Armenians were in communication with Tyre and other Phenician cities, in which they traded with horses and mules (Ezek. xxvii. 14). The Meshech mentioned in Ezek. xxvii. 13; xxxii. 26; xxxviii. 2, 3; xxxix. 1, and in Ps. cxx. 5, are probably the Moschi (Assyrian, Mushku and Musku), the inhabitants of the Moschian mountains, between the Black and the Caspian seas, which contained rich copper mines. " Tubal " (Assyrian, Tdbal), which is always mentioned in connection with Meshech, is

—

the

name

of the Tibareni,

east of the

Black

sea.

who

lived to the southof the Moschi is

The name

perhaps preserved in Mzchet, the ancient capital of Iberia (Georgia), now a small village and station on the Transcaucasian railroad, about fourteen English miles from Tiflis. Descendants of the Jewish captives who were carried away from Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar have lived in great numbers in the Parthian and Persian countries adjoining Armenia, and, occupying themselves with agriculture and handicrafts, attained wealth and lived peacefully under the rule of their " Princes of the Diaspora " (" resh galuta "),

who were supposed to be descendants of David (M. Brann and D. Chwolson, in the article " Yevrei," in Entziklopedicheski Slovar," vol. xi., s.v., St. Petersburg, 1894). According to Moses of Chorene (fifth century), King Hratchai (Fiery -Eye) obtained from Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, a distinEarly guished Jewish captive, named ShamSettlement, bat (which name, according to A. Harkavy, is identical with " Sabbat "), he loaded with honors. From Shambat descended the family of Bagratuni (or Bagration), which heads the list of the Russian nobility (see Bobrinski, "Dvoryanskie Rody," i. 1, St. Petersburg, 1890). When Vagharshak, brother of the Parthian king Mithridates I., and the founder of the Arshak dynasty, ascended the throne of Armenia

whom

Aries

Armenia

150 b.c, he introduced a new rule in the governof the country, nominating the Jew Bagarat, a descendant of Shambat, hereditary viceroy {naharar, satrap), and coronator (aspet) that is, the official charged with the duty of placing the crown on the head of the ruler. This dignity and duty remained with the Bagratuni family until the end of the Arshak dynasty in 433. The coronation, thenceforth, depended for its validity upon the performance of this act (N. O. Emm, "Minutes of the Sixth Session of the Fifth Russian Archeological Congress," held at Tiflis, September, 1881, to be found

ment



in "Russische

Revue,"

But accord(Gutschmid and others) the work of Moses of Chorene is of a later date and his statements are open to question. During his expedition to Palestine, to take vengeance on Queen Cleopatra of Egypt, Tigranes took ing to modern

xviii. 309-311).

critics

number of Jews captive. He settled them Armavir and in the city of Vardges, on the river Ksakh, which subsequently became a large commercial center. King Arsham, the brother of Tigranes, imprisoned the coronator Hanania, and deprived him of all honors, because he liberated from bond-

a great in

age the Jewish high priest Hyrcanus. Josephus relates that Cleopatra took part in Antony's expedition to Armenia, when Antony subdued Armenia

and

" sent

Artabazes, the son of Tigranes, in bonds,

with his children and procurators, to Egypt " (" Ant. xv. 4, § 3). He also states that the Herodian house was related to the royal house of Armenia ("Ant." xviii. 5,

§ 4; ib. xiii. 16, § 4). captive Jews were removed by Arsaces (85-127 of the common era) from the city of Ernanda and settled by him in the capital of Artashat. According to tradition, the family of Amatuni, which

Many

was of Jewish origin, came from Oriental Aryan countries to Armenia in the reign of Arsaces. At the end of the reign of Arshak, during his iniquitous persecution, the Persian king Sapor II. (about 360) ordered the destruction of the fortifications surrounding all the Armenian Carried cities, and also commanded that all the by Jews and Judaizers of the city of Van, Persians, who had been transferred to that city during the reign of Tigranes, should be taken into captivity and settled in Aspahan. Faustus, the Byzantine (4th century), in describing the invasion of the Persians in the time of King Sapor II. (310-380), relates that the Persians re-

Away

moved from the city of Artashat 40,000 Armenian and 9,000 Jewish families; from Ernandashat 20,000 Armenian and 30,000 Jewish from Zeragavan 5,000 Armenian and 8,000 Jewish; from Zarishat 14,000 Armenian and 10,000 Jewish; from Van 5,000 Armenian and 18,000 Jewish; and from Nakhichevan 2,000 Armenian and 16, 000 Jewish families (360-370). This great mass of Jews, according to Faustus, had originally been transported from Palestine by King Tigranes Arshakuni. While these figures may be exaggerated, there can be hardly any doubt that Armenia at that time possessed a large Jewish population (see Ersch and Gruber, " Encyklopadie, xxvii. 440 et seq.; Gratz, "Gesch. der Juden," iv.

422; Jost, "Gesch. der Israel.," ii. 128, Leipsic, 1858; Harkavy, "Vyestnik Russkikh Yevreyev,"